Since 2019, Boulter has opened its doors every summer to students who are ready to roll up their sleeves and find out what a career in the trades really looks like. What started as a simple idea has become one of the most rewarding things we do as a company. Here's why we built our internship program, and what seven summers of interns have taught us along the way.
Why We Started
The skilled trades are facing a well-documented labor shortage. Experienced tradespeople are retiring faster than new ones are entering the field, and too many young people never get a real look at what these careers offer. For a fifth-generation, family-owned company like ours, that isn't an abstract industry problem. It's personal. Our future depends on the next generation of riggers, millwrights, crane operators, project managers, and craftspeople choosing this path.We realized that waiting for talent to find us wasn't a strategy. If we wanted young people to consider careers in the trades, we needed to show them the work firsthand. Not a brochure. Not a career fair booth. The actual work: the job sites, the wood shop, the warehouse, the planning meetings, the 6:30 a.m. truck loads.
So, we built a summer internship program around one principle: interns at Boulter do real work that matters.
What the Program Looks Like
Our interns don't fetch coffee. From day one, they're embedded in the business. Depending on their interests and background, that might mean:
- Assisting warehouse staff with inbound and outbound logistics
- Working in the wood shop, building custom crates that protect multi-million-dollar machines
- Join field crews on active job sites
- Shadowing project managers through facility walk throughs, quoting and process planning
- Sitting alongside company leadership to see how strategic decisions get made
Some of our interns come from technical programs. Others don't. What they share is curiosity and a willingness to work with their hands. We've found that matters far more than what's on a resume at 19 years old.
What We've Learned
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Give interns real responsibility, and they'll rise to it. Every summer, we're reminded that young people are capable of far more than they're often given credit for. When an intern is trusted to prepare a crate for machine worth millions, or to help keep a warehouse running, they take that trust seriously. The growth we see between June and August is remarkable.
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The trades sell themselves once people see them up close. Most misconceptions about careers in the trades come from distance. When students stand on a job site and watch a coordinated team rig and set a piece of production equipment, something clicks. The skill, the problem-solving, and the pride in the work speak for themselves.
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Connections run deeper than you'd expect. One of our recent interns applied because his grandfather worked at Boulter years ago, operating cranes and working in our diesel shop. His most meaningful takeaway from the summer was realizing he was learning in the same spaces where his grandfather once worked. In a family business, moments like that remind us the trades are often a family story too.
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Internships are the best hiring pipeline we have. This one came full circle for us just last month. Nathan Hoban joined us as an intern two summers ago, working warehouse logistics. He returned the following summer to support one of our largest projects, working directly alongside our owner. This June, we welcomed Nate back full time as our new Assistant Project Manager, a role created in part because of what he showed us during those two summers. By the time he started, he already knew our people, our projects, and our standards. There's no interview process in the world that gives you that.
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The return flows both ways. Our interns learn from our team, but our team learns from them too. Fresh questions make us examine why we do things the way we do. Mentoring sharpens our own people. And every summer, the energy interns bring reminds all of us why we love this work.
Part of the Bigger Commitment
Our internship program is one piece of a broader commitment to workforce development. We host skilled trades career events, welcome student groups from local schools for facility tours and mock interviews and were honored to be named a Lift & Move USA Workforce Ambassador for our work inspiring the next generation of trade professionals.
We don't do this because it's easy. Building a meaningful internship takes real time from our team every summer. We do it because the future of our industry, our company, and our community depends on it.
Interested in Interning at Boulter?
If you're a student curious about careers in rigging, millwright work, logistics, project management, or the skilled trades, or you know someone who is, we'd love to hear from you. Reach out to our team to learn more about our summer internship program.
