Local company, work-study program prepare students for the future

Unlike most 17-year-olds, Mark Palmer maintains a full school schedule and holds down a job — and has done so for the past four years.

The Los Angeles resident wakes up every Friday at 5 a.m. and gets a ride to Verbum Dei High School, the all-male college prep school where he’s a senior. From there, Palmer commutes to La Cañada’s Allen Lund Co. and reports for a full day of work.

He might spend the day scanning documents, helping the company transition toward digital record keeping, and delivering mail to the 85 employees in the corporate headquarters office. He appreciates the skills he’s learning and is glad to have some solid work history on his resume.

“I enjoy it here,” Palmer said on a recent Friday. “Allen Lund Co. is a great company and right now, I can’t imagine myself working in any other place.”

For the past 13 years, Verbum Dei’s Corporate Work Study Program has placed some 750 students like Palmer in internship positions with area businesses and organizations, from Nike, Inc. to the Los Angeles Police Department. The mandatory four-year program exposes students to the world of work well before they attend college, said Joe Anlauf, the school’s vice president of corporate recruitment.

“It’s a great opportunity for them but they earn it, literally and figuratively,” Anlauf said. “When we hit a home run is when kids go to college and they do come back and work at the company where they interned.”

Businesses pay an annual internship fee that is applied to the students’ tuitions. Attending Verbum Dei, which has a 100% graduation rate, gives a leg up to students who might otherwise not have had such opportunities, Anlauf added.

The Allen Lund Co. has hosted Verbum Dei interns since 2007. Employees say the perks of the program go both ways. They keep in touch with former interns and have attended both high school college graduations.

“It’s not just a program that gives people an opportunity to work; it’s much more inspiring,” said human resources coordinator Pamela Koerber. “They gain a lot of work experience with us, but we also take a lot of pride in getting to know them.”

Allen Lund said when he first heard of the program, he wanted his company to be a part of it.

“It helps get these young men up to speed in life, and I just think it’s terrific,” Lund said. “We’ve had nothing but fine young men come out of there. These kids, if given a chance, can really succeed.”

Palmer’s currently checking out colleges like Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and the University of Portland, and hopes to someday be a politician.

“I want to get really local and go back to the community. Eventually, I want to be president — that is the goal. It’s a lot of work but I’m willing to do the work to get there,” he said.

Wherever life may take him after graduation, Palmer knows he’ll maintain communication with employees at the Allen Lund Co., people he’s come to know as friends.

“I’ve formed a relationship with a lot of the people here,” he said. “I’ve got to keep in touch with them.”