Intern Success Story: Tasha Comstock
By Tess Ellender, Process Improvement Intern
January 7, 2019
Tasha Comstock joined the Office of Process improvement (OPI) in the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) as an intern in December 2013. She spent eight months at CDOT, during which she fondly describes her time here as “invaluable.”
A Logical Step
Tasha graduated from the Colorado School of Mines in 2013 with a BS in Economics. As an undergrad, she took numerous operation research courses which focused on identifying and optimizing areas of improvement. Therefore, she thought a process improvement internship was a logical fit to further her classroom knowledge. Having a previous public sector background, Tasha saw CDOT as a good opportunity to merge her government-related work experience with her process improvement interests.
Photo of Tasha Comstock
“Family”
When asked about what value CDOT brought during her time as an intern, Tasha focused on the relationships built during that time. She stressed that if she could describe the culture at CDOT in one word during her internship, that word would be family. “The internship opened numerous doors and resulted in lifelong friends and mentors…When I first started the internship, I always heard people say that CDOT was one big family and that couldn’t be more true. Many times, people were willing to go out of their way to help others succeed and thrive,” Tasha stated. She considers building relationships at CDOT as the best piece of advice she has for future interns.
Gaining Experience through the CAN
Primarily working to start the Change Agent Network (CAN) with supervisor Michelle Malloy, they worked in tandem to get the initiative up and running. Tasha worked on smaller, data-related projects as well, but reflects on her time working on CAN as the project that most influenced her career goals.
“Being able to work on CAN really showed me that I enjoy being able to learn from others and collaborate with other teams and departments” Tasha explained, “The opportunity to work with teams outside my own is something I look for when considering a new role.”
Where She is Now
After multiple public sector internships for US Senator Mark Udall, for the state legislature, and for CDOT, Tasha began working for DISH Network in 2014. She joined the call routing team as a business operations analyst, before moving to the workforce management team and then settling on the social media team, where she works now. She is responsible for managing the team of social media agents and operations as well as the online customer forum. Tasha credits her time in the public sector, specifically her CDOT internship, for allowing her to bring a unique perspective to the private sector.