{"id":6630,"date":"2019-09-18T13:31:31","date_gmt":"2019-09-18T17:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.darden.virginia.edu\/admissions\/?p=6630"},"modified":"2019-09-19T08:00:35","modified_gmt":"2019-09-19T12:00:35","slug":"digging-deep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.darden.virginia.edu\/admissions\/2019\/09\/18\/digging-deep\/","title":{"rendered":"Batten Venture Internship Program Spotlight: Digging Deep in Coal Mine Communications"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/span>n the first installment of a new series of Batten Venture Internship Program<\/a> (BVIP) blog posts, we feature Second Year James Lapp (Class of 2020), who had a “thoroughly different” summer. His internship allowed him to combine his background in natural resources and mining with a deep dive into PBE Group’s operations, accounting and finance projects \u2014 putting Darden’s core curriculum to work.<\/p>\n

The Batten Venture Internship Program offers students the opportunity to pursue internships with venture capital firms and their portfolio companies, startups or closely held enterprises. Entrepreneurial students who hope to start their own venture gain valuable formal experience through BVIP, which offers a matching salary stipend to encourage this one-of-a-kind internship exploration. Learn more about Darden’s Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

James shared highlights and insights from his internship, which included visiting an Australia manufacturing plant and living in Southwestern Virginia.<\/p>\n

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Coming from a strategy consulting background, I wanted to use my MBA summer to get more hands-on, operational experience \u2014 particularly in a small industrial business. By rounding out my skillset with operational know-how, I\u2019d be better positioned to buy and operate a business of my own.<\/p>\n

Spending my summer at PBE Group<\/a>, a manufacturer of underground communication and safety electronics systems, was a perfect choice for me. I joined because it was a medium-size firm where I could dig into real problems and have a tangible impact. I was impressed with what the management team (two Stanford MBAs) had accomplished since acquiring the company as well as with the board’s background, which includes several accomplished mining executives. Moreover, my background in natural resources and passion for coal mining, a key market for PBE, aligned perfectly with the business.<\/p>\n

The actual internship work was a refresher of the entire Darden core curriculum. I worked on a range of operational, accounting and finance projects that covered so many of the case problems I had encountered in the preceding 10 months. For example, I worked on postponing the customization of the printed circuit boards (PCBs) used in many of our products. By \u201cpostponing\u201d the choice of certain board components to later in the supply chain, we were able to reduce both the number of boards purchased and inventory holding costs. As part of that project, I visited a PCB supplier, toured their factory, and worked with their management and our engineers to implement the recommendation. Other examples include updating the plant\u2019s overhead costing methodology to reflect the cost of inspection and testing activities into product prices and margins; creating a lifecycle playbook with engineering and sales to upgrade coal mines with outdated technologies to the latest equipment; and developing cash flow models and associated recommendations to reduce working capital constraints and improve liquidity.<\/p>\n

For me, the experience confirmed a few things about managing a smaller enterprise, particularly a manufacturing business.<\/p>\n