Greg Crawford

I was very excited when I received word that Segal Consulting accepted my internship. I have had an interest in statistics and studying data for a few years now and I knew that I wanted an opportunity to see how the skills that I learned in class would apply to the workplace. I was pleased to find that everyone in the Public Sector Compensation and Bargaining Practice had a Cornell degree from the ILR School. They made the experience feel very natural and inviting.

The major project for the semester was compiling information into the 2013 Public Sector Health Benefits Database. My work involved reviewing public employees health plans in all 50 states (plus D.C.) and entering that information into an Access database so that the information would be available in an accessible formation for the consultants. Because the practice performs both compensation and benefits studies for clients (together called a total compensation analysis), it is often important for the consultants to know the benefits that states are offering that are comparable in size to the client’s.

The internship provided me with a look behind the curtain of the consulting world. I was asked to attend the weekly staff meetings and each week I would present the progress that was made on the Public Sector Health Benefits Database. Because I was much more productive than was expected, I completed the work on the database with a few weeks still remaining in my internship. I was then given the opportunity to do extensive work on multiple compensation studies. When the internship drew to a close, I was pleased to be offered a position. It was a fantastic experience and a great way to end my time at Cornell.

- Greg Crawford