Muhlenberg athletes are spending the summer of 2023 enjoying fantastic experiences on campus, in their hometowns, across the country, and even around the world.

Rising junior men's wrestler Anson Dewar, a finance major, interned at a space and defense company where he researched NASA programs.

This summer I took the position as a Program Manager Intern at Frontgrade Technologies, a space/defense company that designs, manufactures and supplies radar, communication and joint action technology to commercial and military/government companies. I worked alongside program managers, engineers and master schedulers learning how to create Frontgrade's accounting systems, how to analyze sales orders and how to work with supply chain databases (Made2Manage and Salesforce).

While at Frontgrade, I researched the Artemis/Orion program, NASA's mission to Mars, learning about the RF coaxial cables we produce in our Exeter, New Hampshire, facility. The cables are used to carry high-quality video feed and keep the Orion capsule connected to NASA's Deep Space Network. I was able to analyze upcoming opportunities for Frontgrade with the risks involved using a Risk Register. I will present my findings in a PowerPoint at an Intern Expo in front of the chief executives across the country on August 8.

I helped create an Excel additive manufacturing cost template; learning labor rates, formulas for cost calculation and the calculation process. The cost template is aimed to be used by all program managers and manufacturing engineers in the future to help represent royalties and outside printing expenses. This will make it easier to dissect expense information for the chief program officer and diagnose any program conflicts. I worked with a program manager and an engineer, who each ran multiple tests on the template to ensure perfection.

I worked with a master scheduler to help automate a process meant to auto-populate the "billing/shipping information" sales order field in Made2Manage associated with the customer number within the database. We held meetings with Sales, Programs, Manufacturing and Shipping to locate responsibilities and directly auto-populate the process. I also sat in on a PMR Dry Run in front of the chief program officer, a PMO (Project Management Office) bi-weekly to check in on current program progressions and updates, and on meetings with customers such as NIWC (Naval Information Warfare Center). These meetings helped me learn program language, the kinds of reports programs deal with and the format most meetings are held in.

This internship has been extremely eye-opening to me and has exposed me to the possibilities that a finance major can pursue. The Program Manager team has been very welcoming and has helped me thoroughly by mentoring me through each of my projects. I am tremendously grateful for this opportunity I have been given.