Five months before I graduated from UMKC, a friend told me
about a job that a friend of his from college had landed after graduating.
Eventually this connection got me an interview with an organization
called TRADOC Analysis Center (TRAC), located in Fort Leavenworth, KS.
TRAC provides analysis for decision-makers in the Army, typically
informing acquisition decisions. After a series of background
checks and a mountain of paperwork, I started my internship with TRAC in
January, 2011.
Part of the internship requires me to attend a 14-week
training course at Fort Lee, VA, which I completed this past summer. This training was very useful to me, as I became familiar with many of
the tools and techniques that I will need as an operations research systems
analyst (ORSA). Five weeks after returning from this course, I
married my beautiful wife, Ashley, on October 7th 2011.
In addition to the training course, interns are required to
enroll in any graduate course, from any school of their choosing. Since TRAC will pay for an M.S. in Operations Research through K-State,
most interns, including me, take advantage of this opportunity. The K-State program is taught through distance education.
TRAC provides its employees with many opportunities to travel
and to be a part of important studies that have big impacts on soldiers. I look forward to using my math skills in the workplace, and further
developing them.
Paul Theobald