The best way to get hands-on experience, and real-world customer interaction is to be in the field. This is the mentality of the Grow West internship program. Each summer, we host 6-8 PCA student interns at a number of our branch locations across our company. This internship, lasting approximately 8 weeks, provides a diverse set of experiences to help students learn more about Grow West as a company, our customers, and the PCA role and all that it entails.  The experience is also an opportunity to network and build relationships with Grow West employees, partners and suppliers.

Samantha Hanley, VP of Human Resources comments, “We try to give our interns the opportunity to sit in and do rotations between dispatch, delivery, operations etc. This helps them see all of the interactions, logistics and the execution flow of the entire company. If they need to fill in as backup at a location, at least they have been introduced to that portion of our business too.”

In the past three years, Grow West has formalized its internship program, providing a more structured approach complete with a meet and greet dinner, onboarding day at the headquarters in Woodland, a summer project and department tours. Because Grow West is a complex organization with a rich history and many different departments, we want to ensure interns are able to learn and experience our organization above and beyond one specific location or manager during their internship program.

Mike Boer, Sales Manager at Geyserville, shares his perspective, “The internship program is important for both the students going through it and the seasoned PCAs on our staff. It gives us the chance to be exposed to new thinking and new perspectives while providing them with our knowledge and years of experience.”

Lindee Jones, Grow West PCA, participated in the internship program and now serves grape growers across the north coast. She shares why she believes the Grow West internship is better than others. “The team experience is really the difference. While they do get a lot of alone time checking fields, the interns are also included in everything that our PCA teams do. For example, weekly sales meetings, soil sampling, integrated pest management exposure, and customer meetings. They get to see all sides of the business.”

Thank you to the seven interns who joined us this summer! We are so thankful to have had the opportunity to get to know you and learn from them. If you know any of these young people, please congratulate them for a successful summer!

• Rachael Wilson, California State University, Chico
• Crawford Cooley, University of Wyoming
• Sam Danna, Oregon State University
• Andrew Kindelt, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
• Jerry Tapia, California State University, Chico
• Melchor Alonso, Santa Rosa Junior College
• Catherine Kett, California State University, Chico

To request information about the internship experience or to recommend someone to the program, please reach out to Samantha Hanley at HR@growwest.com. To submit a resume, please click the button below.