An Off-Road Internship at Polaris

Nic Jantzen ’19 MBA won’t forget the thrill of driving an ATV any time soon. Not only did his summer internship at Polaris give him a crash course in the power sports industry, but also access to riding trails on over 500-acres of land in Wyoming, MN.  

“My biggest lesson learned was to be proactive and get dirty,” Jantzen laughed. And he means that literally. When he wasn’t busy analyzing tariff impact as an Operations Intern, Jantzen was learning to drive off-road vehicles at the company’s R&D center. “It was an absolute blast.”

Back inside the office, Jantzen was busy with two main projects. His first centered on tooling asset management. For many parts on a Polaris vehicle, they need large, expensive tools to produce the parts. Jantzen provided his recommendations for how to best manage this process. To get certain changes approved, he needed to work with leaders within the organization to move forward. 

For his second project, he analyzed traffic impact, an ever-shifting landscape within the industry. His final deliverables were tariff impact reports for Polaris strategic sourcing stakeholders. “Everything I learned in my operations management class was very useful for my internship. Polaris gave me the on-the-job experience,” he said.

The professional networking was also beneficial to his career. Jantzen met with a variety of departments, which helped inform his career choice in strategic sourcing and global operations. He even worked on an assembly line for a day to see how the sport vehicles are made. 

His positive internship experience affirmed his decision to pursue a career at Polaris. “Being able to see the impact of my work is so rewarding,” he said. “Seeing a vehicle coming out in 2020 and knowing that I was a part of that is so awesome.”

Polaris is just one of the many organizations that Full-time MBA students intern at while at St. Thomas. Jantzen makes up 97% percent of the 2019 MBA cohort who completed an internship.