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A Summer of Joy with the National Park Service
Hi all! My name is Rhea Choudhury and I’m currently pursuing an MBA at Harvard Business School. I was lucky enough to work for the National Park Service (NPS) this summer as a Business Plan Internship (BPI) Consultant with the Submerged Resources Center (SRC). The SRC is the NPS’ national dive program, responsible for documentation, research, and maintenance of shipwrecks, reefs, downed WWII planes, boat docks, and everything in between. My role was to help them design a more sustainable operating and funding model to ensure their long-term viability within the park service. Before I began my first year at...
2023 BPI Summer Recaps: Annika Roise
Annika Roise is a second-year MBA student at the MIT Sloan School of Management. As a summer consultant for the National Parks Business Plan Internship (BPI), Annika developed an asset utilization and prioritization process for vacant and underutilized buildings at Point Reyes National Seashore, to enable the park to implement a long-term investment/divestment strategy. She joined us at the end of the summer to reflect on her experience. What drew you to this internship? I think what initially drew me to the BPI was just seeing ‘National Park Service’ on the MIT job board and thinking how different a public...
2023 BPI Summer Recaps: Meredith Randolph
Meredith Randolph is a second year MPP student at the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. As a summer consultant for the National Parks Business Plan Internship (BPI), Meredith worked to ensure the sustainability of the public-private partnership between Gettysburg National Military Park and the Gettysburg Foundation (GF) to reduce barriers to visitation, improve visitor experience, and promote the partnership’s shared goals. Meredith joined us at the end of the summer to reflect on her BPI experience. Tell us about your experience at orientation. What were your main takeaways? The week was awesome. For...
2023 BPI Summer Recaps: Jessie Ralph
Jessie Ralph is a second-year Social Impact MBA student at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. Jessie spent her summer as a Consultant for the National Parks Business Plan Internship (BPI), during which she developed an asset utilization and prioritization process for Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Jessie joined us at the end of the summer to reflect on her BPI experience. What initially drew you to this internship? I think just hearing the name piqued my curiosity. When someone was describing what they had done over the summer and said “I worked for the National Park Service”, I thought, “Oh,...
2023 BPI Summer Recaps: Amy Roach
Amy Roach (she/her) is a second-year MPP student at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. As a summer consultant for the National Parks Business Plan Internship (BPI), Amy developed an integrated commercial services strategy for Voyageurs National Park and its visitors. What initially drew you to the BPI? I heard about the internship through our career center because the staff knew I was interested in environmental policy. When they flagged the BPI for me, my first thought was actually, “This is more business-oriented, and not for me.” But then I met with another Ford...
2024 BPI Summer Recaps: Lily Bishop
Lily Bishop is a dual MBA + MS in Design Innovation (MMM) at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management and McCormick School of Engineering. As a summer consultant for the National Parks Business Plan Internship (BPI), Lily developed recommendations for the leadership team at Independence National Historical Park (INDE) to optimize use of physical space across all park buildings for employee well-being, operating efficiency, revenue potential, and visitor experience. We sat down with Lily at the end of the summer to talk about her BPI experience. PGI: Let’s talk about what drew you initially to this internship, amongst the many...
Demystifying the NPS BPI Interview Process: How to Ace the Written Application
The application process for the National Parks Business Plan Internship (BPI) is comprised of three stages – the written application, which includes two short answer questions and resume submission, a one-way video interview, and a live case interview. This post offers advice and insight on how to excel in the short answer portion of stage one, with do’s and don’ts for each component. Question 1: Why are you interested in spending your summer working for the National Park Service? How does this internship fit into your short and long-term career plans? DO: Show us that you’ve read the...
2024 BPI Summer Recaps: Anshuman Kowtha
Anshuman (Anshu) Kowtha is a dual-degree student, pursuing a MBA/Executive MS in Engineering & Applied Science at Columbia University. As a BPI Summer Consultant, Anshu and his co-consultant conducted an extensive budget and fee operations analysis, determining the cost it takes to operate the North Rim and actions the park leadership can take to increase revenue and manage fee operations more efficiently. Their work will assist park decision-makers as they consider how they allocate money across divisions and locations at the Grand Canyon and how much it might cost to operate the North Rim for an extended season. We caught...
2024 BPI Summer Recaps: Shatakshi Shekhar
Shatakshi Shekhar is a second year MBA candidate at University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. Shatakshi’s BPI project was to analyze the financial and operational sustainability of Song Dog, a native plant nursery at Lake Mead National Recreation Area (LAKE). Along with her co-consultant, Shatakshi developed recommendations to help LAKE better recover costs from partner agencies, improve documentation to reduce institutional knowledge loss, formalize volunteer and partner collaboration structures, and reduce administrative burden. The LAKE pair also developed recommendations to help the national native plants materials program develop a national nursery network to foster knowledge sharing and highlighted best...
PGI Privacy Notice
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