Pennsylvania Game Commission internship plants career seeds for student
A summer internship with the Pennsylvania Game Commission helped Penn State senior Dominic Lenzi cultivate his skills in the field of forestry. Lenzi, of Hermitage, a forest ecosystem management major in the College of Agricultural Sciences, learned about the internship when attending last year’s Ecosystem Science and Management Career Fair.
As a Game Commission intern in the northwest region, Lenzi said every day brought something new. He and another intern worked with a forest technician doing a wide variety of jobs, such as marking boundary lines for several thousand acres of timber sales, recording plot data, and performing global positioning system work and crop tree release. He explained that crop tree release essentially is giving specific trees more space to grow by trimming back the vegetation around them.
Another part of the internship was prescribed burning to help with forest management. Lenzi found the process fascinating.
“The professors and the classes at Mont Alto gave me a strong foundation that has helped me succeed at University Park,” he said.
He noted that the professors within the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management truly are dedicated to helping their students flourish.
“The faculty and staff within the department are really good about passing along information and letting you know when there are job or internship opportunities in your area of interest,” he said.
Lenzi is a member of the Penn State chapter of the Society of American Foresters, which is a professional organization affiliated with the national Society of American Foresters. Last fall, he was elected to be the student representative on the board of the Pennsylvania Forestry Association, which is a subsidiary of the national society.
As he winds down his senior year, Lenzi is looking to apply for a forest technician position with the state. As during his internship, he would be marking timber, treating invasive species and completing other forest maintenance in state parks, national forests and state game lands.
“There are lots of opportunities in the industry, and I’m really looking forward to this next chapter of my life,” he said.
