Local Company Wins YSU STEM Intern Employer of the Year!

Lordstown Motors

Cole Sexton, a senior Chemical Engineering major, interned at Lordstown Motors during Summer 2021. His amazing experience led him to win the 2021 YSU STEM Intern of the Year award! Now, we recognize the company behind his amazing accomplishments, the 2021 YSU STEM Intern Employer of the Year!
 
Lordstown Motors was founded in 2018 with the goal to bring to market an all-electric pickup truck, the Endurance, with a focus on commercial fleets. We want to empower work and bring the electric vehicle revolution currently taking place to the modern workers of America.
 
Youngstown State is one of the local colleges near Lordstown Motors. It is also the Alma Mater to many of our employees. With YSU being so close to our Ohio plant, we enjoy having them be our first point of contact when finding interns, new graduates and alums for our open positions. We have also been involved in the STEM Expo and members of our Engineering Team got a chance to tour the newly built Excellence Training Center. Since the start of our program, we have hosted interns from YSU and our very first intern was a YSU Chemical Engineering student.
 
Lordstown Motors usually hires around 30 to 40 interns per intern term. We have intern sessions/terms every Spring, Summer, and Fall. Each department is allocated two interns, sometimes more if they are a particularly busy department. This past summer, when we had Cole interning with us, we had over 50 interns between our three locations.
 
Having interns in our organization is so important for our company to grow and maintain talent. Being a start-up company, it is so important for us to retain the talent of the interns by offering them other internship opportunities within the company or even full-time offers after the completion of their internship. Since the beginning of our Internship Program, we have had more than 25 Interns transition into full-time roles within the company after graduation.
 
Cole hit the ground running and was ready to go. From both technical skillsand attitude, he was an excellent intern. He helped manage a project for a new NVH foam application system. He also played a key role in our safety buy-off and commissioning system as we moved into production. Cole was able to grow and learn a lot in only 3 months. As he grew more comfortable in the position and took on projects, he also grew significantly in his confidence and “soft-skills”.
 
You can catch Lordstown Motors at the Spring 2022 STEM Expo on February 24, 2022. Also, learn more by visiting their website.

Special thanks to Elizabeth Stange, Corporate Recruiter at Lordstown Motors, for taking time to answer our questions!