Janessa Huffman was Named January Intern of the Month

2015 Feb 23

West Liberty resident Janessa Huffman, who is a junior accounting major and finance minor, was named Ashland University's January Intern of the Month after completing a summer internship with the Gorman-Rupp Company in Mansfield, Ohio.

Huffman is the daughter of Jerry Huffman and Dajuan Kindle. She is a 2012 graduate of West Liberty-Salem High School.

Gorman-Rupp is a manufacturer company that sells pumps and pumps systems for a number of different markets including water, wastewater and construction. The Gorman-Rupp Company strives to be the very heart of the world's pumping infrastructure.

While at her internship, Huffman served as the Corporate Accounting Intern. There, she worked with three different corporate employees including the Manager of Compliance and Financial Reporting, Corporate Controller and the Manager of Internal Audit. With these advisors, her duties included: updating "SEC filings to be ready for filing at the appropriate time, tying out numbers to financial statements in their new financial reporting software, and creating an excel spreadsheet that efficiently calculates manufacturing overhead rates."

"I think my biggest accomplishment was the excel spreadsheet," Huffman said.

Prior to her internship, the classes at AU propelled Huffman's knowledge of excel spreadsheets as she completed businesses spreadsheets in class, "I'm really proud that I could take what I learned in the classroom and apply that in the real world."

Huffman said she valued the work with taxes and internal audit as well as exploring the side of accounting. Overall, her experience with Gorman-Rupp was a successful one.

"It was the perfect first internship for me. It was a nice introduction into the corporate business world and professional accounting. It further instilled in me that I am in the correct career path."

Ashland University is a mid-sized, private university conveniently located a short distance from Akron, Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio. Ashland University (www.ashland.edu) values the individual student and offers a unique educational experience that combines the challenge of strong, applied academic programs with a faculty and staff who build nurturing relationships with their students.