Project and Operations Management at the American Red Cross
The American Red Cross (ARC) is a multinational not-for-profit organization that provides disaster relief, emergency assistance, and education to those in need. I worked at the ARC Penn-Jersey region headquarters located at 7th and Spring Garden in Philadelphia. I worked in the both the blood collections and logistics departments; reporting directly to the Blood Collection Services Managers.
At ARC I learned how to leverage data to allow for more efficient business practices in the future. My title was Operations Management Intern, and I was able to understand the importance of project management in a large business setting. A major project I worked on was the cost analysis of late ending blood drives. When a blood drive ended late, each of the workers was paid an extra $10. Being that ARC is a non-profit, every penny counts. Every day, I would go into the database of previous drives and would input the late drives into excel to find factors that would influence drives ending late. I compiled and analyzed the data and presented it to my managers at the end of the internship and informed them of Field Managers and Recruiters that were most responsible for costing the company money.
This was my first internship at a large company, I previously have only worked for Start-Up’s so I learned the business operations and the importance of correct project management within a large company as well as best practices for working in an office and the importance of balancing multiple deadlines.