Experience

My internship with The Clorox Company was my first opportunity to experience engineering in an active manufacturing environment, and it ended up being much more hands-on and immersive than I expected. I joined the Global Technical Services Electrical, Instrumentation & Controls team and spent the beginning of the summer learning how engineering projects move through design, safety review, installation, commissioning, and startup. A lot of the terminology and documentation I had only seen in school suddenly had a real purpose because I could see how drawings, control systems, safety standards, and project decisions directly affected equipment and people in the plant.

The biggest part of my internship was a four-week assignment at Clorox’s Hidden Valley Ranch facility in Reno, Nevada, where I supported the commissioning of a robotic palletizing system. Traveling alone for the assignment and working in a plant for an extended period pushed me outside of what I was used to, both technically and personally. I had to quickly learn the environment, understand the project, communicate with people across different roles, and become comfortable asking questions when I didn’t know something.

One of the experiences I’m most proud of was leading a Safety Risk Assessment focused on potential interactions between two industrial robots and nearby structural columns. Before the internship, I had never led a technical safety discussion involving engineers, contractors, vendors, plant personnel, and leadership. I had to prepare the assessment, understand the possible failure modes, guide the team through different scenarios, document the discussion, and make sure the final conclusions and proposed controls were clearly captured. That experience gave me a much stronger appreciation for how much engineering judgment and communication go into safety decisions.

I also supported commissioning activities such as equipment walkdowns, I/O checkout, action-item tracking, and Pre-Startup Safety Review work. Some days were heavily technical, while others involved following up with different groups, attending plant meetings, reviewing documentation, or simply being present in the field and learning from the people doing the installation and troubleshooting. That variety was one of my favorite parts of the experience because it showed me that engineering in manufacturing is rarely confined to one desk, one discipline, or one type of problem.

By the end of the summer, I felt significantly more comfortable communicating with engineers and plant personnel, representing a project in meetings, working through unfamiliar technical problems, and adapting when plans changed. More importantly, the experience confirmed that I enjoy industrial and manufacturing environments. I like being close to the equipment, seeing projects move from documentation into physical systems, and working with multidisciplinary teams to solve problems that have an immediate real-world impact.

Clorox ultimately helped me better understand the type of engineering career I want to build: one that combines automation, controls, robotics, safety, hands-on project execution, and manufacturing operations.