This summer, junior entrepreneurship major Blake Collins acquired the internship of a lifetime.
As an employee for start-up company NEC Corporation of America-Indianapolis, a solar development company that sells solar panel arrays to privately held companies, Collins played a role in helping them potentially acquire its first multi-million dollar deal.
“I was given the opportunity to work at the start-up company through my relationship with the owner, who I have known for many years and am best friends with the owner’s son,” Collins said.
Collins said he was one of two employees at the start-up company. Some of his tasks consisted of creating potential customer lists, as well as compiling and creating an employee handbook and playbook. He worked alongside his associate to create various spreadsheets and worked on matters such as return-on-investment, net investment and other financial areas.
Collins said helping the start-up work toward its first multi-million dollar deal was a huge accomplishment. He said he especially enjoyed being able to create a company from scratch and see the product of his efforts at the end of the internship.
“I was shown how to truly start a company,” Collins said. “It was a humbling experience seeing how much time and effort, alongside money, it takes to do something like this.”
Collins said next to his father, his most influential business mentor was NEC LLC Indianapolis business owner Jeff Lackey. Lackey always stressed the importance of having “critical thinking skills,” which Collins co-signed as being one of the most important tools to sharpen when creating a business.
Moreover, Collins said that working as an employee of Lackey’s start-up was an invaluable experience.
“Not many 21-year-olds get to do this and truly dive into the field you are studying in school, let alone do it with someone you are close with,” Collins said.
Collins is keeping his post-graduation options open, but he said his internship experience has solidified his interest in entrepreneurship.
“As of right now, I am thinking the finance field,” Collins said. “After this summer, it did affirm my aspirations to become a successful entrepreneur and showed I really did have the spirit of one as well.”
