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Gerry Kavanaugh ’76, founder and CEO of DCS Online Communications in Washington, D.C., hosted an eight-week summer internship for Amanda Whitbred ’11 (Doylestown, Pa.), an English and philosophy double major.
Amanda Whitbred joined DCS Congressional the summer after her freshman year, working with four other interns to complement our staff.
Our company is an online communications firm that provides services in three different sectors: on-line services to members of Congress, political candidates, and advocacy campaigns, including, for example, U.S. Senator Evan Bayh, Congressman Patrick Kennedy, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi; on-line education projects, including a program to allow children in military families to take on-line tutorials and assessments to prepare them for their families transferring from one military base to another; and a non-profit venture to promote the need to keep kids in school and raise the graduation rates for older, urban school districts in Southeastern Massachusetts.
Amanda worked in all three areas of our firm, providing valuable insight and research into each task that she took on. She wrote and prepared analysis and content for various websites and e-mail newsletters for members of Congress, assisted in the preparation of a website devoted to the online instruction of children in military families, and prepared key analyses of drop-out prevention activities in school districts across the country. She was an engaged member of our client affairs team, giving her input into discussion on the development of comprehensive online strategy for both political and non-political clients.
Amanda was especially helpful as we ventured into non-profit work for high school students. As the lead staffer for our Massachusetts nonprofit, SouthCoast Connected, she undertook research that eventually led to the organization securing funds from the United States Department of Education to provide capital for a number of innovative activities in four different cities in Southeastern Massachusetts. Her research provided the foundation for the creation of these dropout prevention programs.
In addition, Amanda has provided invaluable research for a nationwide healthcare education partnership that we are now developing. She analyzed important data about the health care industry, its workforce needs, the current capacity of public and private institutions to produce those workers, and specifically the current and potential role of community colleges in training and educating the workers needed in the health care industry.