By Autumn Mott
“Every morning I read the Wall Street Journal and thank Barry Forbes.”
Laine Milburn, 2016 business administration graduate, is a development assistant at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an international relations think tank in Washington, DC. The oldest in the United States, Carnegie’s mission is to bring about global peace through research and collaboration with government officials and businesses.
After graduation, Milburn didn’t have a job lined up, so she went to her network. “Barry Forbes and Jon Turk always stressed the importance of building your network,” said Milburn. “I met with several people, told them I was looking for internships, and landed a post at Population Council. They created a position for me as a business development intern.” The Population Council researches critical health and development issues around the world. For two months Milburn worked with the business development team drafting proposals, creating and editing supporting documents such as capability statements, past performances, and knowledge management material.
Soon after, Milburn became an intern in the development office and president’s office at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “It was honestly the best internship I ever had,” she said. CSIS is a nonprofit research organization that provides strategic insights and policy solutions to decisionmakers around the world. “It was really interesting to see how a nonprofit is run: the internal operations as well as the external face of the organization,” recalled Milburn. “Working with the development staff to support current partnerships and prospect new partnerships gave me opportunities to attend and coordinate logistics for high level meetings.”
By the time her internship at CSIS ended, Milburn knew she wanted to continue working in the foreign policy universe. “I met with quite a few people from my network and gained an idea of where to strategically apply during this time of funding being cut at different organizations,” she said. “I applied at
Carnegie, got an interview, and the next day I was offered the job. It helps to have great recommendations.”
Looking back on her time at Union, Milburn spoke fondly of her classes in the business division. “Business Policies with Barry [Forbes] was my all-time favorite class,” she said. “Every morning he’d have us do this Wall Street Journal thing, and we didn’t know who he would choose, so we had to read the WSJ and pick an article that we would then present to the class in 30 seconds. It really taught me to pay attention to what’s going on in the world. It’s helped me a lot where I am now; I still do it every morning.”