Interning at Econo-Pak with Noah Harrington
Noah Harrington is a bright and motivated young man with a passion for entrepreneurship. As the nephew of PJ and Bob Wiebel, our CEO and Director of Operations, he has worked as an intern for the past two summers.
Check out our podcast transcript below as Noah shares his experience working on the production floor and helping clients with trialing.
Prefer to listen or watch? Listen on our podcast or watch the video on YouTube.
Sarah Richter:
Welcome to the Econo-Pak Contract Food Packaging podcast. Today we’re here with Noah in our brand-new podcast room.
Mike Mead:
How’s it going, Noah?
Sarah Richter:
As you can see, we have our new neon sign up.
Mike Mead:
Yeah, really excited to have a space to really try to scale this podcast.
Noah Harrington:
Yeah, it’s looking great. I mean, seeing the progression of all this coming together is really cool to see. And then it’s just like, it’s here, and we can finally start doing stuff here which is really cool. Yeah, it’s awesome.
Sarah Richter:
That’s awesome. So why don’t you explain your relation to the family?
Noah Harrington:
So I’m PJ and Bobby, the CEO and director’s nephew. I kind of come in here during the summer and intern here. I’m just here to learn and help out where I can, and I’m really enjoying what I’m doing. Last summer, I came in for the first time. I would come up here as a kid, but I never was able to learn about what everybody does here at Econo-Pak.
And last summer I was able to come in for the first time and kind of start slowly getting the feel of things, and people were introducing me to different departments, and I was working my way around and learning stuff. And now this summer I’m able to get a little more hands-on now that I know a little more. I came up every now and again throughout the school year on Saturdays, and I would work on the lines, so now I have a better feel for what’s going on, and I can help in different areas, whereas last year, I couldn’t do that.
And yeah, it’s just really cool to be able to change up what I’m doing, get a little more hands-on, and help out with everything a little more.
Mike Mead:
Yeah, it was nice last year. I got to spend a little bit of time with you and your first year and go through some of the different processes, and we got to sit together, but you’re right, you didn’t get involved in a specific department. This summer was a little bit different, so you got to work directly with Johnny Montana. He’s our project manager here at Econo-Pak, and you got to spend a lot of time with him. How was that experience?
Noah Harrington:
I’m loving it. So at the moment, Johnny’s out, and he’s able to kind of leave us with a bunch of different tasks and objectives, and we can reach those goals, and he can trust us that we’re going to be able to do that without him here which is pretty cool. And even while he is here, he’s comfortable with sending me off to do certain things within my reach, and I’m also able to do that perfectly fine which is great. And that’s just why I think last summer, if I just jumped in, and I didn’t get the experience that I did, I don’t think I would be able to do this stuff that I’m doing now because without that experience last summer, I wouldn’t have as much of a feel for all the different departments. I wouldn’t know who to go to for what as I do this summer which is great.
Mike Mead:
I think the intern position, when people go into a company, and they get to intern, I think it’s important to be able to spend, if you can do multiple seasons, even work one year, and they go back to school, and they get to come back into that company and get to learn a little bit more about what they do and get more involved. I know that’s something that we’re looking to do here at Econo-Pak, bringing in different types of interns to work in our different departments and really get to learn a lot of cool stuff.
Noah Harrington:
For sure. Yeah, I think it’s just really exciting. Even just I love what I’m doing right now, I think it’s awesome. Just watching stuff come together, I think it’s just so cool.
Mike Mead:
Yeah.
Noah Harrington:
Building a line and just seeing all the different moving pieces that go into it, I think is very interesting.
Mike Mead:
Yeah. You’ve been able to work with some really high-profile clients of ours this summer, especially with our great R&D trialing programs that we have here. And then it’s always important when you’re working on those large-scale projects to go into the FPA, right?
Noah Harrington:
Yeah.
Mike Mead:
So what was your experience getting to work on the trials and then the FPAs and how are they a little bit different?
Noah Harrington:
So as far as trials go, those are pretty straightforward. The customer lists out everything they want from us, and sometimes they’ll be here, other times they won’t be. But regardless, we are always going to rise the above and beyond their expectations. I mean, those, they just give us a bolded list, and we reach all those goals and try to shoot above and beyond the stars which is pretty cool. And it’s just kind of testing out the product, making sure everything works with our company. And then as far as the FPA goes, it’s a little more serious. They’re keeping a strict eye on us, and it’s kind of the final stretch until we can go into actual production. That’s just really exciting because we’re just reaching that final endpoint.
Mike Mead:
Yeah.
Noah Harrington:
And then as far as working with the customers, we recently had a big company come in who works with us, and I was able to give them the rundown of what’s happening on the line and talk to them, get some know bit, know them a bit, and then run through the line and get their take on how they feel about different things that are going on and kind of report back to Johnny Montana and kind of just get a feel for all that stuff which is really cool.
Mike Mead:
Yeah.
Sarah Richter:
Yeah. So we’ve had some conversations while you’ve been interning here just talking about your goals for the future in business. And so I really, well, one, I want to hear you talk about your goals a little bit just because I think it would be fun for future Noah to hear eventually.
Noah Harrington:
Definitely.
Sarah Richter:
And two, I want to know how this has either shaped or inspired your future goals.
Noah Harrington:
Yeah, definitely. So, I mean, growing up I’ve always wanted to have my own business. I’ve ran a few of my own businesses growing up. I had a car detailing business that I ran for a while. Throughout the entire school year I was running a landscaping business, and those have always been my two main things. I’ve always just been on and off. Whenever I have time, I’ll pick up clients and work with them. I recently got into in the past couple of years doing social media, so I’ve always been obsessed with cars. So doing that kind of thing, I built up a decent following, and I was able to work with different brands and do sponsorships and then help friends out who have their own little restaurant businesses or whatever and kind of market them a little bit and help them with their social media work.
So that alone has also taught me a little bit, but I think for my future goals, I’d love to have my own business. I think, I don’t know 100% what I want to do yet, but I’m really into, this is one thing that’s inspired me. Building the lines together and then taking all the different moving pieces and putting them together for the final product, it’s kind of made me think a little bit, I kind want to build stuff, build houses or something like that.
Just because I just think it’s so cool to see we have a million pieces out on the floor here, and then a couple of days later, it’s a functioning wine. So I think, yeah, that’s inspired me a little bit to want to do something like that where I can just see a bunch of different components, put it together for a finished product, and have it running and functioning and something cool like that.
Mike Mead:
That’s super cool.
Sarah Richter:
Yeah.
Noah Harrington:
Yeah, so that’s definitely inspired me a lot to do something like that, but yeah, so pretty broad what I want to do, but I’d like to push down and see what I can do.
Mike Mead:
Awesome.
Noah Harrington:
Yeah.
Mike Mead:
That’s great.
Noah Harrington:
Yeah.
Mike Mead:
Well, it is been absolutely a pleasure getting to spend time with you. I appreciate it. Last summer, this summer, and then hopefully next time when you come back into the company you can spend a little bit more time in our marketing department.
Noah Harrington:
Definitely.
Mike Mead:
And work could be a part of this too, this process.
Noah Harrington:
For sure. I’d love to.
Mike Mead:
Awesome.
Noah Harrington:
Well, yeah, I really appreciate it, everything, and thank you for your time.
Sarah Richter:
Thanks, Noah.
Mike Mead:
Thanks, Noah. That was great.
Let's start scaling.
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