Making the Most of Internships: Step Up Alum Keaton Clarke

Step Up had quite an impact on Keaton Clarke's career. The summers after his freshman and sophomore years were spent interning at Leo A Daly architecture firm, and they were pivotal. He had always had an interest in STEM-related fields, either in architecture or engineering. At Leo A Daly, he was able to explore both. His first summer, Keaton worked with the the architects. His second summer was with the engineers.

Keaton’s supervisor in his second internship was Eric Rodriguez, a Mechanical Professional Engineer (PE). Eric was very encouraging and asked Keaton to try out a new trial software, AutoCad CMD, to map air flows. Keaton’s work in this new software was used in active projects, and he was able to teach another engineer how to use the program. Before the end of his internship, Keaton made a presentation to the company leadership to purchase the new $14,000 software package and fully implement is at the organization. They were impressed and made the purchase!

When Keaton returned for a third internship experience, Eric had moved on, but the connection was not forgotten. After graduating from high school, Keaton went to the University of Minnesota Twin Cities for mechanical engineering. One day, Eric reached out. He and three partners had founded a new start up, called Vicus Engineering. He wanted to know if Keaton would like to meet for lunch. When Keaton showed up, he discovered that Eric had brought half of the company with him. Not to be intimidated, Keaton pitched the idea of them hiring him on as an intern…and they agreed! This was just before the pandemic and now Keaton works there full-time.

“I have a lot to thank Step Up for,” says Keaton. “Because of my experience, I was able to get a full-time job with no resume and no interview.” He feels he would have never had this opportunity without the Step Up program.

By the end of his three summers, Keaton had three years of college-level experience on his resume. In college, he discovered the value of what he had gained. His experience helped him gain an additional internship experience at Anderson Windows early in his college career. Keaton’s advice to others who are considering Step Up is to definitely do it!