This summer we welcomed four interns to different offices within the North and Central America region. Throughout the next few months we will be sharing interviews with them as they tell us about their experiences working at YKK Corporation of America.
Meet Koei Howell, one of our summer business development interns. Koei interned at YKK Corporation of America’s headquarters in Marietta, GA. He is a rising junior at Georgia State University studying actuarial science and mathematics. His hobbies include working out, biking, and hiking. He also enjoys traveling, eating food from different countries and he is fluent in Japanese!
We asked Koei to share about his experience throughout his internship at YKK Corporation of America, here’s what he had to say:
During my YKK summer internship, I learned technical skills that put skills I was introduced to in university to work. We were given extraordinary opportunities by the president of YKK Corporation of America, Mr. Jim Reed such as: attending a Rotary Club of Atlanta and the Carter Center’s Board of Councilors meeting and meeting exceptional scholars, leaders, and experts of their given fields.
YKK has taught me the importance of integrity and corporate responsibility in day to day action. My current project’s aim is to perform an analysis of YKK’s strengths and opportunities in growing markets and strategize ways for the company to expand its manufacturing.
My day would start early! I would come in by 8 am after fighting upstream to make it to Marietta against Atlanta traffic. On Mondays there are weekly meeting that review the 25 Fundamental Behaviors. Every Monday we review the one highlighted behavior that becomes the theme of the week. This week’s theme was “Be positive,” and in the morning we reflected how we can add value to the company and our coworkers. Afterwards I would either meet with my fellow interns or with Mr. Reed to check my week’s progress and what I would plan to accomplish that day and the following days toward my project. I think throughout the experience me and the fellow interns have become friends that we can count on at YKK for our projects, but also after our experience here as friends.
