Jan. 3, 2024

This paid piece is sponsored by Knife River South Dakota.

From the outside, it might have been hard to tell that Jaivyn DeBoer and Tony Valland weren’t already part of the full-time team at Knife River in Sioux Falls.

“That’s actually what it felt like,” said DeBoer, a South Dakota State University sophomore who has spent two summers interning at the company.

“It didn’t even feel like an internship. It felt like a summer job, and that was the perfect way for it to be while we were still learning a lot. They explained everything so well and put us in a position where we knew what to do and how we were doing, and they just believed in us.”

DeBoer began working at Knife River before he’d even started college. Valland followed with his friend the next summer after both had finished their freshman year in the concrete industry management, or CIM, program at SDSU.

“I had never seen concrete work done, and pretty much right away they had me work with QC (quality control), and I got to see the end result of what they do and how they handle customers,” Valland said. “They brought me out on an important pour right away, and they threw me in, so I learned hands-on, which is something I loved.”

For Knife River, offering internships is a new and increasingly important way to connect with talent – especially given the launch of SDSU’s CIM program, which is one of the only programs of its kind in the country. Funded by outside national and regional patrons, including Knife River, it’s a business management program focused on the concrete industry.

“The first week I was here, before I taught a single class, I had people calling me up looking for employees,” said Timothy Hostettler, program director and associate professor of practice. “I think I could have placed 50 interns last summer, and we had eight.”

The two who went to Knife River “really liked the company,” he said. “They loved it. They liked the company and the culture and the industry, and they were excited about it.”

Additionally, students in the program are expected to attend local and national industry trade shows, going as far as Nashville and Las Vegas to learn about and meet others in the industry.

“They go all over, and by the time they come out, they have a network within the industry like no other program does,” Hostettler said.

That definitely includes Knife River. President Clark Meyer met Hostettler his first week on the job and immediately saw the opportunity to partner.

“It’s a great program for our industry, and as patrons, as a company, we’re happy to support it,” Meyer said. “It’s one of the fastest-growing CMI schools in the country. There’s a lot of excitement building for it. We know a lot of the kids we reach are going to come back to work here, and we’ve got spots for them.”

Knife River intentionally created a hands-on, varied internship experience, said Terry Coomes, ready-mix operations manager.

“We wanted our interns to get the most out of it, so we didn’t just plug them into one area. They spent time with me in production and in dispatch, and they spent a lot of time in quality control so they could be in the field and get exposure to real projects,” he said.

“We knew they wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time in an office setting, so once we had given them some training, we gave them work where they were able to go out on projects on their own, which brought a lot of value to us, as well as a lot of learning for them.”

The hope is “to get them to a point where they like what they’re doing and they see value in the industry,” he added. “It’s such a great program. I’d be surprised if they don’t see 100 percent job placement for kids who put in the effort coming out of it.”

That’s essentially the case for the other four universities nationwide that historically have offered the program, and SDSU’s first student who will graduate this spring already is employed.

For students like DeBoer and Valland, it was a powerful way to spend the summer.

“I just love it,” DeBoer said. “All the people seemed like they wanted to be here. It’s work, but they showed they cared for me and Tony, and everyone explained everything so well. They brought us into the quarry, and we sat in the batch office, and we did sales. They went from not having interns to doing an amazing job putting together a program.”

His classmate agreed.

“It was awesome. I was hands-on with everything I learned in class, and it really made everything click,” Valland said. “It’s such a great program, and having a company like Knife River in Sioux Falls is amazing for students. I hope the partnership continues to grow.”

To learn more about the CIM program at SDSU, click here.  And to learn more about career and internship opportunities at Knife River, click here.