Episode Transcript
00:00 Drew Hartmann: It's kinda like a perfect puzzle. If you're missing one piece, it's not gonna work, you know? It's a kind of a machine, it all fits together, right? If a cog in a machine isn't working, it's not gonna, you're not gonna have the same output.
[music]
00:28 Brian Fugate: We're here in Dallas, Texas with Drew Hartmann. And we're at the DHL Lego side with Legos all around us in the room and all around this building. And we'll talk a little bit more about that but Drew is a Walton supply chain student graduating May 2020. And he's an intern here as a, you're an operations intern?
00:50 Drew Hartmann: Yeah. Operations.
00:50 Brian Fugate: At DHL Lego. So, Drew, could you tell us a little bit about what you're doing this summer?
00:55 Drew Hartmann: Yeah. So basically with an operations intern here at Lego DHL. So all the Legos are made in Mexico, and they're shipped here to us. And so from here they go everywhere in North America. So I mean, whether that be like, the West Coast, East Coast, the Midwest, it'll go everywhere. There's even plants in Canada, where we'll ship product to. So basically what we do is we'll just, help with day to day activities. And over the past month or so, we've been doing this, wow products, it's what we call it. It's a new way to, pick product in the warehouse. And so we've been, training new associates on it. We've been running the graphs and numbers, something like that. And next week, actually, we're going to the DHL North America headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, to present in front of bunch of executives.
01:43 Brian Fugate: Okay, how's the internship process? So you arrived on site? Was there any kind of onboarding training?
01:50 Drew Hartmann: Yeah, so we arrived on site and, standard training the first couple days and after that, we actually went through the training all the associates go through. So we got to learn how to drive a forklift, learn how to drive a pallet jack, and learn how to pick a little bit, which is, really interesting and kind of fun to learn.
02:06 Brian Fugate: Okay, so what are some of the goals, things you wanna accomplish this summer?
02:10 Drew Hartmann: So one of the main things for us coming in, it was just learning like the soft skills and people skills. So obviously, this kind of environment, like you really wanna relate to all the associates and be able to talk to them and kind of get them motivated to accomplish the main goal. So if you become friendly with them, learn more about their life, if you ask them to do something, they're more likely to do it for you, and you'll accomplish the goal quicker and easier.
02:35 Brian Fugate: That's very good. To learn this early on in your career, and I know you've had previous interns that you've kind of started learning that as well, you'd talked about before. So Drew, I wanna switch gears a little bit and first, remind you that you're in a live studio audience here with some of your very close interns here working with you this summer.
[applause]
02:55 Brian Fugate: Yeah, and so I wanna set that up to say, to ask you this question. So what makes coming into work here fun? When I first got here today and and saw the way that you were interacting with your colleagues, I can tell you're having a lot of fun. So tell us a little bit about that.
03:13 Drew Hartmann: Yeah, I mean everyone here, it's a really fun environment. It's kind of like a family. That's what we were told when we first came in, and you're kind of skeptical but then once you're here for a longer period of time, you really believe it. I mean, all the interns I'm with, they're fantastic. We have a lot of fun but there's also something new every day. So we're not doing the same stuff every day. It's not the same boring routine. We're tackling different issues every day, and it's just a lot of fun to be around.
03:35 Brian Fugate: You know whats interesting, it leads me to think about one question I was gonna ask you. So do you like The Bachelorette?
[laughter]
03:44 Brian Fugate: Big fan of The Bachelorette.
03:45 Brian Fugate: So what's your favorite episodes?
03:47 Drew Hartmann: The last one was pretty good. Luke P getting booted off the show. It was just fantastic.
03:52 Brian Fugate: Okay. Okay. Very good. All right. So your colleagues planted that question, as you can say also.
04:00 Drew Hartmann: Yeah, actually, I figured.
04:00 Brian Fugate: Yeah, very good. So Drew, coming at you, you've been in school for years, right?
04:07 Drew Hartmann: Yeah.
04:07 Brian Fugate: And used to the routine at school classes, homework, all those kinds of things. And now you're here every day, how's your routine different?
04:17 Drew Hartmann: It's a lot different. When you're at school, you have so much free time to kind of not do whatever you want, but you have a lot of leeway with when you can do things and stuff like that but when you're working 40 hours a week, you pretty much only have from five o'clock to, eight o'clock, nine o'clock, something like that to get stuff done that you wanna do. So, it's a lot different. I'm really glad I had this opportunity because I know how life's gonna be after college, when I'm having a job working 40, 50 hours a week, knowing how that work life balance is gonna be and how I can just kind of prepare myself for it.
04:47 Brian Fugate: So Drew, could you tell us a little bit more about your project in particular? I know you've got this presentation that you're gonna be given soon.
04:53 Drew Hartmann: Yeah, so actually on Tuesday, we're all flying out to Columbus, Ohio, where the DHL North America headquarters are. We're gonna be giving a presentation on Thursday. On Wednesday, we kinda just meet everybody and do a couple of site tours and just kind of learn more about the company. And then on Thursday we'll be giving our presentation to a bunch of executives and VPs. The CEO of North America might actually be there. We're not too sure about that yet. So yeah, after our presentation, everything, then they actually kinda go into like a bidding process and all the general managers will decide, "Okay, I kinda wanna hire this guy. I wanna hire this guy." So we hope to get an offer by the week after the presentation.
05:33 Brian Fugate: Okay, that's fantastic. So, when you say, "We're gonna go presenting," is it Drew presenting, or is it a team?
05:39 Drew Hartmann: No, so it's the team of interns we have there is...
05:41 Brian Fugate: Okay.
05:41 Drew Hartmann: Myself and three others. One of them goes to North Texas, one of them goes to Texas Tech, and we're all, we've been working on this presentation for a couple weeks now and we're finally gonna be able to present it for everybody.
05:52 Brian Fugate: Okay, okay. So, taking a little step back to your education at the University. Think about some of the classes that you've enjoyed, which ones have stood out for you?
06:00 Drew Hartmann: Definitely my favorite was supply management. It was one of the first supply chain classes I took my sophomore year. And it was just one of the most, some of the most fun I've had in the supply chain class. It was one of the harder classes I've taken, but I think I learned the most in that class.
06:00 Brian Fugate: Okay, so even further than that, further back than that, at some point, you chose the supply chain major. Why did you choose that?
06:00 Drew Hartmann: So I just loved how everything goes together. It's kind of like a perfect puzzle. If you're missing one piece, it just, it's not gonna work, it's a kind of a machine, it all fits together, right? If a cog in a machine isn't working, it's not gonna, you're not gonna have the same output. So I just love how everything goes together. It just, in my mind, it makes perfect sense. That was my favorite part about it.
06:00 Brian Fugate: Okay. Okay. Maybe it's like Legos, right?
06:00 Drew Hartmann: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
06:00 Brian Fugate: So I'm curious, do you get to play with Legos while you're here this summer?
[chuckle]
06:00 Drew Hartmann: Every now and then. Not a lot, but we can look at them.
07:00 Brian Fugate: Yeah, yeah. I'd have a tough time 'cause I'll just play all day. So thinking back, to yourself maybe as a freshman, sophomore, or if you're talking to some younger students, what advice would you give them? Looking?
07:13 Drew Hartmann: Definitely tell them like it's okay to not know what you wanna do. I came in, a little bit of an idea of what I wanted to do, I didn't even know what supply chain was when I was a freshman. So definitely, take as many courses as you can to figure out what you wanna do. I'm super happy that Arkansas had a supply chain program because without that I wouldn't be where I am today, and it just really helped me.
07:36 Brian Fugate: Okay, fantastic. Well, Drew, thanks for your time today. Really appreciate it and look forward to catching up with you more about it when you get back to campus.
[applause]
07:46: Good work, Drew.
