In partnership with the IT Division and the Diversity and Inclusion Office, Berkeley Lab recently launched its veteran internship program with NPower. NPower is a national program, with a Bay Area chapter serving veterans who are eager to transfer their military experience and develop new skills toward a career in technology. The free Technology Service Corps program offers the following curriculum: CompTIA A+ Certification, Active Directory, ITIL, and ServiceNow.
As part of the Lab’s pilot program, the IT Division hosted two interns: David Martin (Infrastructure Services group) and Tashawn Nicholas (Workstation Support group). David’s responsibilities included: troubleshooting network issues for users, assisting with network upgrade projects, and updating documentation. Tashawn supported the deployment of workstations to the new Security Operations Center, in addition to assisting with workstation standup and imaging.
The program ran for seven weeks (May 10-June 23), with a strong possibility for Lab participation again this fall and the coming years. At the end of the program, all Bay Area NPower participants were recognized at their group’s graduation event on June 21, 2016 in the San Francisco War Memorial building. LBNL’s interns can be seen below (Tashawn on left, David on right).
“The value of NPower and similar programs is that they provide a pipeline of skilled, valuable interns and potential long-term staff to the Lab,” said Ian Vaino, Group Lead for Workstation Support. “NPower, in particular, is of great help with the Lab’s outreach efforts targeting minority, underrepresented and veteran communities who otherwise might be overlooked or not enter into the applicant pool. In many cases, veterans are facing some challenges readjusting back to civilian life. However, veterans are a great benefit to the Lab, since they typically come in with great skills, work ethics, and experience. A program like NPower can help ease their transition and improve the likelihood that an intern will go on to a promising career, either with the Lab or elsewhere.”
For questions, please contact dio@lbl.gov.
