Alexis Degler, the development intern, was kind enough to lend her writing skills to the Bucks Go Pro blog for Wednesday’s field trip to Cardinal Health, since I’m currently competing in a four day swim meet and couldn’t attend the trip! Keep reading to hear Alexis’s take on Wednesday’s activities…
Hi everyone! My name is Alexis Degler, I’m the blonde head you see in a lot of the pictures and the Development Intern this summer. Cheyenne asked me to fill in for her for the day because, probably as I am typing this right now, she is swimming her personal best time and killing it in her swim meet. I was really excited when she asked me, I’ve never written a blog post before, but now that I am writing this, I am getting a little nervous.. so bear with me.
It all started a little earlier than normal. The BucksGoPro interns all showed up in front of the Fawcett Center at promptly 8 a.m. When we looked around, we realized half of our group was missing! Many of the BucksGoPro’s had competition conflicts so there were only 15 of us going on the tour. As we piled into the bus, we all could have had our own row but for some reason we decided to all scrunch together so that we were able to chat about who knows what. We’ve all become so close over the last six weeks so there really isn’t a quiet moment.
As we rolled up to the front of the Cardinal Health building, we quickly realized what it means to go corporate. This was not just a really tall building, it was like five really tall buildings all connected and there were even more across the street. This was a campus. When we walked inside, all of the interns were in awe. Everything was sleek and modern and I even heard Niki Miyashiro say “I feel like when I walk through the check-in gate I am going into a time machine sending us to the future.” It was a really impressive lobby.
Brooke Miller, a financial advisor for Cardinal Health, stayed with us all day on both of our tours and facilitated many of the presentations. She picked us up in the lobby and brought us to a conference room. Each spot at the table had a folder containing information, a pen and sticky notes, as we all are about to strategically choose our spot, you hear Alex Bayne, the SASSO intern gasp “FREE COFFEE!” Everyone turns around, wide-eyed, and heads straight to the table in the back containing Free Starbucks coffee, and an assortment of muffins, scones, and other pastries, and personalized name tags. I mean if the scones and coffee don’t convince you to work at Cardinal Health…I’m sure the personalized name tags will! We were all so impressed. We all returned to our seats and were officially ready to hear about the history of Cardinal Health as well as careers and programs offered.
It was hard not to be impressed by Cardinal’s history of acquisitions of companies. They kept listing off all the companies that are now under the Cardinal Health umbrella and all of the markets that they had expanded into and it was remarkable.
After we learned all about Cardinal Health we split in half and were taken on a tour of Cardinal’s campus. My group leader was Joe Valponi, an accounting advisor, and he showed us everything from the interactive room (that Olivia DiCarlantonio was fascinated with) to the workout gym, which Olivia DiCarlantonio was also fascinated with…
When we made it back to the conference room (and grabbed our second cup of coffee) we got to hear from 3 of the Cardinal employees in the Emerge Program. The Emerge program is a program that allows employees to get a better understanding of multiple roles within a company. They rotate every few months in order to gain relevant knowledge and skills that will help them be successful in their future career. We were lucky to hear from a recent Ohio State Cheerleader alumn, Nicole Douglas, and she along with her two coworkers, answered all of our tough questions.
After the panel, we gathered our stuff and headed back onto the bus. It was a long trip but everyone was enjoying each other’s company, or so we thought. Gordie Koerber, pointed out to the group that Jake Dastrup had fallen asleep. I guess it’s true when you hear that if an athlete is tired, they can sleep whenever or wherever they get the chance.
When we got to the National Logistics Center we were all a little skeptical at first, but when we walked down the stairs into the floor I think the first thing was said was “It looks just like Costco.” We split our groups up in half and coincidentally my group had all girls with absolutely no background knowledge about the logistics of a factory, let alone a factory for pharmaceuticals, and the questions started pouring out. We learned the ins and outs (literally the way that the pharmaceuticals get in and leave the factory) of the factory, met some of the employees picking orders and loading and unloading trucks, and found out that our tour guide, Jonathon Downes, the supervisor of warehouse operations, and his team won the Cardinal Health dodgeball tournament!! Needless to say, it was a very informational tour, and a great experience.
When we got back to the front, the other group was there waiting for us. I guess we asked too many questions? But we returned our safety vests and said our thank you’s and goodbyes and headed back to campus. It was kinda a weird feeling when we left the bus. It was our last time being together before the big presentation. Its definitely a bittersweet feeling as we have made so many great memories together this summer.
So that’s all I have for our Cardinal Tour visit! Thanks for bearing with me, Cheyenne will be back next week to talk about our group projects (wish us luck!!!!)
Alexis Degler