Intern Recaps Summer with the Chamber

This summer, the Greater Wausau Chamber of Commerce welcomed a Marketing and Workforce Development Intern, Taylor Thelen.

Taylor is a Marketing major at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, but she is originally from central Wisconsin. After finishing her first year pursuing an education in business, alongside a minor in Spanish and a certificate in Campaign Consulting, Taylor was excited to return home to view her community through a new lens.

“For a while, I had no idea where I was going to end up working or living this summer, but I was grateful to return home,” said Thelen. “Getting to engage with businesses that I already know and love was so great, and the whole Chamber staff has been incredibly fun to work with.”

Taylor’s internship involved lots of work 'out and about' in the Greater Wausau community. Ribbon cuttings, a perk for Chamber Member businesses, became a commonplace event for her, as did roundtable meetings, interviews with community members, and various other Chamber programs, like the Powering Innovation in Marketing series.

“I never spent a full day sitting at my desk,” said Thelen. “There was always something interesting to do, or see, or film. My position was pretty fast-moving, but that was amazing for the type of person and worker that I am. I love always having something to do.”

In Taylor’s role as Marketing and Workforce Development Intern, she was able to wear multiple different hats. Many of her projects involved researching local initiatives, creating social media content and designs, or writing blog posts, press releases and mass emails. Taylor also got to play a part in planning and hosting the Chamber’s inaugural End-of-Summer Mixer for interns and young professionals in the Wausau area, hosted at the Monk Botanical Gardens in mid-August (see her intern interviews, below).

“The event went better than I could have asked for; we had almost 40 attendees from more than 20 local businesses. I’m really excited to see how the Chamber will take this event and make it even bigger and better next summer,” said Thelen.

Taylor will be starting her second year at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire soon, and is looking forward to making valuable connections between her business coursework and everything she learned during her internship this summer.