Why I Stopped Calling Them Interns

What a Badger Brush Taught Me About Summer Friendship

Twenty-five years ago this summer, I had my first internship at the Lawyers Alliance for World Security.

I had the rare privilege of feeling self-important with no real responsibility.

I had the rare privilege of feeling self-important with no real responsibility. Damien LaVera welcomed me into meetings with nuclear non-proliferation leaders, handed me the draft of Ambassador Graham’s forthcoming book, “Disarmament Sketches,” to hunt for errant commas, and took me to lunch at the Cosmos Club. But the work was never the point. What lasted were the relationships, the most important and meaningful of my life. I still think of Jack Mendelsohn, who brought me a badger shaving brush from a trip to London. I shave with it to this day, on the rare occasions I shave.

The only way to shave and the book I “edited”

Most leaders misunderstand what an intern is for. I have taken to calling them “Summer Friends,” because “intern” carries the wrong idea, and its pejorative for free labor, or a recruiting pipeline. Done right, it is something else entirely. Summer Friends bring a fresh eye and an energy that is hard to manufacture, and they change the daily culture of a place in ways no one can plan for.

Area 1 Security “Summer Friends” (Redwood City, CA)

My expectations are simple. The work should be hard, occasionally uncomfortable, and worth carrying forward. The real aim is to invest in talented, motivated, kind people without keeping score, so they leave with confidence and a set of experiences that stay with them. Mine stayed with me for 25 years.

I remain committed to the long-term success, personal and professional, of every Summer Friend, past, present, and future. Some have become colleagues. Some have become friends. I have been at a few of their weddings, proud that a single summer meant as much to them as it did to me.

This year, when our Area 2 Farms Summer Friends head back to Bowdoin, Cornell, the University of California at Davis, the University of Vermont, Wesleyan, and the Georgetown Day School, I hope they carry two things with them:

1. If you work really hard and are kind, amazing things will happen.

2. Luck is not good fortune arriving at your door. It is knowing what to do with whatever the universe hands you.

Area 2 Farms “Summer Friends” (Arlington, VA)

I am proud to have been an intern, a Summer Friend, and prouder still of what I have learned from the hundreds of Summer Friends since.