Delta State University’s aviation instructors have grown accustomed to getting students from point A to point B.
That includes cross-country flights and getting students graduated and placed with some of the biggest companies in the United States.
Aviation and logistics instructor, Carl Brinkley and Captain Joe Saia, Commercial Aviation department chair and Delta Airlines pilot, are hoping a recent internship program with Indianola’s Dollar General distribution center will blossom into an official partnership with the warehouse and an expansion of DSU’s logistics offerings.
“We, DSU College of Business and Aviation, being this close to the logistics capital of the world, which is Memphis, we’re invested in logistics and we’re trying to grow it, but it’s going to take us building a relationship with (Dollar General), coming over and listening to what’s happening, real time, making sure we’re preparing our students to take on, especially leadership roles and those students come in where they are industry ready,” Brinkley told The Enterprise-Tocsin recently.
For the first time ever this summer, DSU placed two of its commercial aviation management logistics students, John Sharp and Matthew Snyder, with Dollar General.
Sharp, a Sturgis, Miss. native and aviation management logistics student said he was not aware of Indianola’s distribution center prior to taking the internship.
“It actually took taking the internship to find out about it,” Sharp said.
Snyder, who had already earned a bachelor’s degree and then a master’s in counseling, went back to school at Delta State and has since found a passion for logistics.
That’s not to say the internship was easy for Sharp or Snyder.
Snyder said the biggest lesson he can pass on to potential interns and employees of the distribution center is to be flexible.
“Being flexible and being willing to learn, because there’s a lot to learn, and there’s a lot you’re not going to learn within those 10 weeks of the summer internship,” Snyder said. “Even if we were going to come back to work here in the future, there’s even more to learn and a lot we still don’t know.”
The two worked all the normal schedules and were exposed this summer to all the departments inside the facility.
Sharp said it was challenging but rewarding work.
“Take it day-by-day, because the hours are hard, but it’s a good challenge if you’re up to it,” he said. “You can feel successful every day when you walk out of that door. It’s all about how much you want to put in and how much you want to get out.”
Joi Bass, human resources manager at the Indianola center said she has been a big fan of the internship program thus far.
“I love the opportunity for our interns to see a day in the life of what it will be like, really to kind of sample it,” Bass said. “I think it’s a great opportunity to give the students the chance to have that real experience.”
That real life experience is something Brinkley and Saia say they hope to give more aviation management logistics students in the future.
Saia said he hopes to one day add logistics as its own major under the commercial aviation program.
Brinkley said partnerships between DSU and companies like Dollar General could help cut down on the “brain drain” that is plaguing the Delta and other regions in Mississippi.
“What we would like to do is to build a pipeline here from Delta State University,” he said.
Brinkley said Sharp and Snyder were both offered full-time supervisory roles with the distribution center after their work this summer.
