The interns of Navy Exchange Command had a few field trips to attend. The purpose of these field trips was to connect the interns and their areas of responsibility in each of their respective departments to the rest of the company as a whole.

The first was a tour of the NEXCOM warehouse is Suffolk, VA. It is a 325k SQFT warehouse that stores, ships and receives from many vendors to 146 stores of various sizes on the east coast out to Europe. This is amazing and unique for a warehouse this small, as it must practice a level of efficiency unmatched by other companies, especially for the variety of products and number of destinations.

The next tour was of USS Forrest Sherman (DDG-98). The interns got to see how the target demographic for the company spends their work-life and their sort of “ship store” which is really a 10×8 foot shop. It wasn’t much of a revelation to me, definitely not my first time aboard a Navy ship. However due to my experience I was able to provide some of my fellow interns more details that were offered by the tour guide.

I also got some exposure to the CEO of the company, Admiral Bianchi. He had a laptop he rarely used, and therefore wasn’t working properly. He needed it as he was intending on working from home one day upcoming. So I had the opportunity to talk to him as I worked on it. Ultimately I had to wipe and reimage the computer, putting any additional software he required on there. I was wearing my ODU jacket, which he remarked on, I told him I had to represent the school while I was interning.

This 50 hours of work was definitely varied, more field trips and tours to come. Hope I made a good impression on the CEO.

NEXCOM Warehouse Floor

USS Forrest Sherman DDG-98