A student’s internship with two UMass Amherst alumni provided on-the-job experience and mentoring opportunities. 

Shane Breslin, a junior from Bridgewater, Massachusetts learned of the internship opportunity at Granite City Partners through UMass Amherst connections: a friend of a friend knew Joe Shea ’95, the company’s founding partner, and made the introduction.

Breslin spent four weeks at the Quincy-based civil and environmental engineering firm, where he hit the ground running, says Shayna Callahan ’16, assistant project manager at Granite City Partners, with whom Breslin worked closely.

“On day one or two, Shane was in meetings with the mayor, with directors, on construction sites,” Callahan says. “He worked on a series of projects with on-site opportunities and did a lot of reporting, which is really important for our clients.”

The experience was hands-on, with Breslin working directly with the clients.

“I performed a lot of oversight with the City of Quincy Department of Public Works. One of my tasks included reviewing new FEMA flood maps and identifying which homes would be impacted,” Breslin says. “I also put a job out to bid in Dighton in their search for HVAC contractors for their new library.”

Putting interns immediately to work is part of the experience at Granite City Partners, explains Shea, who has hosted several interns since he founded the company in 2020.

“We structure our internship program to try to expose students to the non-academic side of the industry: how to be a consultant versus how to do a specific type of engineering,” he says. “Interns are busy on day one, which is best from my perspective to give them on-the-job training.”

Breslin, a building and construction technology major, says that his experience at Granite City Partners complemented what he is learning in his classes at UMass Amherst.

“When you take courses then participate in internships, you begin to understand how your classes complement real-world experiences. I just completed a project management class last semester that was helpful in putting the project out to bid,” Breslin says. “I didn’t know what a performance bid was before I took my project management class, and then I worked on one at Granite City Partners and got I realized their impact on the project.”

In addition to gaining real-world industry experience, Breslin also found mentors in Shea and Callahan. Granite City Partners even featured their story on social media as part of National Mentoring Month.

“Joe and Shayna welcomed me with open arms. I felt like I was home,” Breslin says. “They did such a good job of exposing me to different aspects of the project management world.”

Callahan looks to her own UMass experience as inspiration for serving in a mentoring role.

“When I was at UMass, I had a professor who took me under her wing and acted as a mentor for me,” she shares. “It’s important to give other kids that experience as well. It gives them confidence to go into the professional field after graduation.”

Shea and Callahan both remember their time at UMass fondly.

“I love the size and breadth of UMass. There’s something for everybody, but you can find your niche, so you’re not lost in the bigger university. I really enjoyed that,” says Shea.

Callahan agrees.

“UMass is full of opportunities waiting to be found,” she says. “The opportunities are endless.”

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