Thank You, Josh Peterson!

Dear Josh,

I want to express just how grateful I am to have had you as an internship mentor this summer. From the very first day, I was amazed at the capable and so comprehensive preparation you put into planning my internship out, week by week, thinking of nearly everything right off the bat. Your plan and entire document of resources helped me feel not only welcome, but also oriented, prepared, and ready to excel toward the goals we were already lining out. Throughout the summer, as we deviated in and out of your initial calendar sketch for my internship, you did a graceful and analytical check in each of our meeting times that I was working toward fulfilling both my goals and our project milestones.

The Esri in One Hour chats you set up for me each week were an incredible resource, and one of the highlights of my summer. I gave Leslie Wilson the feedback on how well put together these were, and she may try to make your model a recommendation to other mentors and interns across Esri. You set me up with a weekly engagement with incredible people who helped me to contextualize different professional pathways, generally, as well as learn about so many different Esri departments. I kept receiving feedback that networking is key to success at Esri between the vast number of departments and individuals working in this massive company ecosystem, and you set me up, from day one, with the tools to easily engage with this network and meet so many more people than I would have on my own, as a relatively shy and adjusting Denver intern. Thank you for your choice of your peers I talked to and your guiding questions for them. To all of the individuals I met with, thank you for helping me understand so much about you, Esri, and answering my questions diligently and with such deep engagement!

I lost count of how many times people I met with for my Esri in One Hour chats commented on your immense skill as a developer. Like Joseph in our meeting with him, individuals shared glowing admiration of your skill as a developer, individual to work with on projects, and leader. I feel so lucky to have been mentored by someone regarded so highly, and I really don’t know how you had time to be such an excellent mentor to me while also balancing projects right and left!

I can tell that mentoring is important to you, and I can’t express enough what a difference you made in making my summer fulfilling, full of learning, and fun. Thank you for taking the time to talk through problems with me, sharing streamlined development resources, thinking through projects to sketch out the most efficient workflows and goals for requirements given, and having the patience to share so much of what you were working on with my curiosity. I wish everyone could have you as a mentor, and I’m happy to now be a connection for you to grow a CU flock of students excited about ArcGIS and innovative, smart web development!

Thanks again, truly.

Best,

Emily