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Autumn Yount understood how seriously medical device manufacturer Medrad Inc. takes its college internship program when she and the nine other interns hired this year were addressed by Medrad's president on their first day.

Medrad's interns also learned that at the end of the summer, they will be responsible for a demonstration of what they accomplished to the Indiana Township company's senior managers.

"We want to give meaningful work to our interns," said Lynn McGuigan, manager of staffing.

Medrad's intern program is an example of how internships can provide benefits for both student and employer.

But this year in the Pittsburgh region, the number of internships available at local companies has declined due to the slow economy.

Larger employers don't have the same resources to direct for recruiting and paying interns this year compared to past years, local internship program coordinators said. And smaller companies often don't consider hiring interns because they don't have the wherewithal to find them.

In response, the Pittsburgh Technology Council is enhancing its internship development program to help its members join in the benefits of having summer interns while providing local students with more access to potential employers, both large and small.

While the Technology Council is beefing up its existing internship program, another group, The Coro Center for Civic Leadership, headquartered in the Renaissance Building Downtown, is aiming to increase the number of interns working in western Pennsylvania companies.

The Coro Internship Initiative, launched this month in partnership with the Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board, proposes to identify and promote internship best practices for employers, colleges and students; develop an internship marketing campaign; and expand technical assistance, particularly to smaller employers.

"In a region where there is a potential internship pool of 100,000 college students, our current efforts result in the placement of less than 1 percent," said McCrae Holliday, director of the internship initiative. "Many studies have shown that students that do internships in an area are more likely to stay in that region when they graduate."

Holliday said her group will coordinate with other internship providers, such as the Technology Council, and universities, to work out any redundancies in their efforts.

At Medrad, interns become wonderful recruiting tools when they return to campus following a positive internship experience, said McGuigan, who oversees staffing and recruiting at the 800-employee company, which makes medical devices.

"We go out to our senior management in January and February to determine what business goals they have that an intern can turn into a project," she said.

Yount, 23, is scheduled to complete her master's degree at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in August in adult education and communications.

She wasn't having much success in finding a summer internship, despite sending out a dozen letters. When she was contacted by Medrad through IUP's career center, however, she got an immediate interview.

"I was really impressed with how employee-oriented they are," Yount said.

Yount will spend the summer learning all aspects of human resources at Medrad while working on two employee-training projects.

"I'm trying to talk to as many people as I can. Hopefully this will lead to a job when I graduate," she said. "I'm learning a lot that I didn't learn in school."

Jennifer Sunday, manager of internship development at the Technology Council, said smaller companies can receive help in developing job postings from the council and view qualified resumes for specific skill sets.

"There are also subsidy programs available to compensate companies for a portion of an intern's salary," Sunday said.

The Technology Council also is reaching out to college campuses to build up its database of potential interns. The council currently has a bank of nearly 2,000 student resumes. Sunday said the goal is to double the number of internships filled through the council by next summer.

Cyndy Tabor, the council's career center administrator, said that not all of the positions are technical in nature. Some postings are for accounting or other business-related jobs.

"This program allows our members to be more efficient in finding quality interns," she said.

Beth Niedringhaus, program coordinator for the Interns 2002 program at the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance, said the program, in its third year, is continuing to supplement the local internship experience by giving interns a better sense of why Pittsburgh is a good place not only to work, but also to live and play.

The Regional Alliance sponsors numerous outings for Pittsburgh area interns, including a "Cultural Crawl" tour of the Cultural District. This year's events also include a white water rafting trip, a treasure hunt on the South Side and a tour of Washington's Landing, the residential/commercial/recreational development on the former Herr's Island near Millvale.

Tereneh Mosley, director of talent attraction at the Regional Alliance, said the number of interns in the program is expected to be down from the previous two years, when up to 500 interns participated.

"The number of companies participating is the same, or maybe more, but companies that might have had 30 interns in past years have only half that this year," she said. "This year, hopefully, is just a little blip. But regardless, we're committed to have (the interns) fall in love with the region on all levels.

Mosley said the Interns 2002 program is especially helpful for smaller employers who don't have the resources to provide a social aspect to an internship that bigger companies can.

Terry Pronko, director of human resources at Maya Design and Maya Viz, sister product design and software design firms on the South Side, said her companies extend permanent job offers to about 85 percent of their interns.

Because business is slow, there are only two interns this year.

"The demand is very high. We had some students who offered to work for free just for the experience, but we don't do that," she said. "I've been referring them to the Pittsburgh Technology Council because I know they might have better success in placing them into an internship."

Pronko says she uses the Tech Council site, www.pghtech.org, more for traditional full-time employee recruiting.

"We get a ton of hits from the Tech Council site. One of the great things about their site is that the people that come to you from there are people interested in coming to Pittsburgh. I don't have to sell the city to those people."

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