Bonneville Power Association (BPA) delivers reliable, affordable hydropower produced in the Columbia River Basin to communities across the Pacific Northwest. The intern will be working with BPA’s Technical Services organization, which develops maintenance standards; conducts expert-level analysis, troubleshooting, and technical training; and coordinates equipment repair and spare parts for BPA's telecommunications and control systems.
The Technical Services organization’s new technical laboratory ("the Fishbowl") has been set up to replicate substation equipment layouts and is used to train BPA's technicians and engineers in maintenance and operation of field systems.
During their internship, the intern will complete an inventory and update schematic documentation of our technical laboratory ("the Fishbowl") and will label connections using a standardized naming convention. This will involve verifying racked equipment against existing drawings, tracing cables with test equipment and labeling connections between system devices. This will benefit the engineers and technicians who take our technical training courses by creating a realistic training environment.
The mentor will provide shadowing opportunities throughout the project, but the intern is free to explore the best way to complete the tasks. The intern will have the opportunity to participate in substation visits which will reinforce the knowledge gained by the time spent in the replica laboratory. It is anticipated for the intern to sit in on technical training, and become familiar with telecom and test equipment. This is a full-time in-person internship, with the expectation that the intern will work at least 300 hours over the course of the summer.
Students must be minimum age specified by June 15. These age requirements are strictly enforced by the mentoring organization, and there are no exceptions.
We strongly encourage students to apply who are from one or more systemically and historically excluded group, including but not limited to, non-cis-gendered students, girls, BIPOC, first-generation college-bound students, low-income/low-resourced students, students with disabilities, students who are neurodivergent, and those who speak a primary language other than English.
If you have any questions about the application, website technical issues and/or this position description, please contact Saturday Academy at ase@saturdayacademy.org. Do not contact the mentor directly. Contacting the mentor directly is grounds for disqualification of your ASE application
Students with an interest or coursework in computer networking preferred but not required. The selected intern must wear lab-appropriate clothing (closed-toed shoes, long pants/skirts for full coverage).
Please note, the intern will be required to complete a background check and fingerprinting for BPA Security. Students must be minimum age specified by June 15.
