Internship helps keep Wright State grad in the state

Board of Regents chancellor says training programs are key to retaining young people, but funds are in jeopardy.

By William Hershey
Staff Writer

[source :Dayton Daily News, Tuesday, June 16, 2009 ]

COLUMBUS — Zack Henderson wants to travel all over the world as a businessman, but he’d like to keep the Dayton area as his base of operation.

Because of an internship he got while studying at Wright State University, Henderson may get that opportunity.

After graduating from Wright State on Saturday with a bachelor of science degree in international business, Henderson, 23, started work Monday, June 15, at Fondriest Environmental Inc., an environmental monitoring products company in Beavercreek, the same company that provided him with a six-month internship.

“I would definitely like to stay in this area,” said Henderson, a graduate of Waynesville High School in Warren County. He’s already studied abroad in China and Spain.

Well-educated young people like Henderson are considered the key to Ohio’s economic future, but not enough college graduates are thinking the same way as Henderson, according to a study released Monday by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

The study, based on online interviews with 811 students, including the University of Dayton and Miami University, found that 88 percent of the native Ohioans say they are proud of Ohio, but 51 percent plan to leave after graduation.

Ohio business and government leaders agree that internship programs like the one Henderson participated in can keep more young people in the state. But many of those programs are imperiled by the state’s financial problems.

The Ohio Senate cut a $94 million internship program out of its version of the state budget, and the chances for restoring it look dim in light of the need to cut $3.2 billion more from the two-year spending plan.

“There are a lot of things that are being cut that have merit,” said Sen. Jon Husted, R-Kettering, a backer of the internship program. “It’s just that there’s no money to fund them.”

Eric Fingerhut, chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents, the agency that oversees higher education, said the program is vital. “We feel very strongly that this program ... could really leapfrog Ohio. ... It could make Ohio one of the most top-rated states in terms of the linkage of jobs for our graduates through internships,” said Fingerhut.

Meanwhile, Henderson said he knows that right now Ohio might not seem inviting to young people, with NCR leaving Dayton and the auto industry crumbling.

“The Dayton area is looking bleak, which is a shame,” he said. “One hundred years ago, it was the innovation capital.”

Henderson said that with the right steps, Ohio could come back.

“Anything’s possible,” he said.