Senior internship at Alaska Coach Tours
www.alaskacoachtours.com
INTERNSHIP POSITION: Operations Supervisor
Alaska Coach tours is an independent tour operator that operates all over Southeast Alaska. The company is in Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan, Skagway, and a sister company in Seattle. I worked at the Juneau base for two summers. Last summer I was a driver and guide, driving the motor coaches, in the photo above. I loved the company and Alaska so much after one summer, that I knew I wanted to come back again. I decided to apply for the Operations Supervisor position, to gain more experience in management and business. Below are some of the goals and objectives I had for my my senior internship while at Alaska Coach tours, as well as examples of how I completed each goal.
goals and objectives
Examples of completed goals
Supervisor Evaluation
My supervisor evaluation is an artifact that proves that I have completed goal #2. It shows that not only do I feel like I have been demonstrating hard work, and putting forth ample amounts of effort, but that my supervisor sees that as well. IT shows that I have been demonstrating skills that are expected to be learned and used during the senior internship.
Excel Driver Dispatch
This is an example of my achievements of goal 2. The document is a schedule for a day when we have two ships in port and what a completed driver dispatch looks like. This document shows that I have learned the skills and techniques necessary to be successful in my operations supervisor role.
SEPPP Project; Wasatch Awareness
This project isn't directly related to my senior internship but it was a great learning experience to introduce me to how important sustainability is in Utah, as well as the rest of the world. This project was a lot of work but it was well worth it and was the main reason I knew that sustainable tourism was the right emphasis for me. I did however learn a lot about the sustainable practices of Alaska Coach Tours. We enforce recycling on all our coaches, we are an idle free city, and our buses must always be inspected to a certain standard to operate in the Tongass National Rain forest.
Risk Management PLan
This is another example of how I have applied my knowledge from my time as a Parks, Recreation, and Tourism major at the University of Utah. This is a Risk Management plan that my partner and I created for an outdoor business at the University. It was a great way to understand the importance of risk management plans and what they mean to tourism companies. I related this back to spending my summer and internship at Alaska Coach Tours and what their Risk Plan would include. It's important to have thorough plans when working in the tourism industry, especially when that includes 21 year old people driving 40 thousand pound, 53 seat motor coaches in high density areas. It is important to have good insurance and plans set in place when things go wrong.