In my internship thus far I have used a wide variety of skills that I developed and practiced in my

Parks, Recreation, and Tourism (PRT) coursework. My daily work at the office consists of checking
emails and returning phone calls, scheduling/ staffing events, doing payroll and creating invoices. All of
this work I can relate back to skills I have acquired in the PRT program. During events I am supervising
140-160 ushers, our main priorities are to get our guests into the venue and ensure that they enjoy the
events in a safe manor, this also relates to things I have learned in the PRT program and will elaborate
on in the in the following reflection.
My job is both challenging and rewarding, and I enjoy it very much, on a day to day basis I can relate my
work to things I have learned in the PRT program. Managing 140-160 employees is no walk in the park, it
is a lot of work and requires a lot of organization. Scheduling is a daily aspect in my job and I have found
that using skills acquired through the Integrated Cores excel lab sessions to be very helpful in that
process. Excel is a great tool in keeping my schedules organized and I am very thankful that I was able to
acquire those skills last fall. During the integrated core I was the outreach coordinator for my groups
SEPPP which was a great opportunity to polish my professional communication skills, these skills have
been crucial in my internship position because scheduling requires constant communication between
my staff and myself.
Using skills I acquired in Dr. Linda Ralstons Electronic Marketing class I have been able to adapt and
update the Guest services web page to provide information for my staff to lessen the burden of
communication on my boss and myself. Using the webpage as a secondary form of communication it
enables me to send out pertinent information to the whole staff without having to call or email each
individual usher.
One of my favorite aspects of my job is evaluating the events and making changes to improve to overall
function of our operation. We spoke a lot about evaluation in the Integrated Cores Evaluation in PRT
section, but have continued to learn about evaluation in multiple other courses. Our methods for
receiving direct fan feedback through phone calls, emails or outreach through social media, we are
constantly evaluating our performance by observing the pace of ticket taker lines, bathroom lines,
drinking fountain lines, area crowding as well as observing fan behavior. One of the most utilized aspects
of our evaluation is receiving guest feedback and taking steps to improve problems. This season we had
an issue at the second game where there were only 4 functioning drinking fountains in a facility with
40,000 guests, after receiving negative feedback we proposed changes and received funding to install 24
brand new drinking fountains and water bottle filling stations. We have had complaints about the lines
for our restrooms so we decided to take a fans recommendations and try to enforce an entrance and
exit to the restroom with movie theatre style rope and pole line systems at the entrance. This worked
well on paper but when 45,000 fans are racing to our six restrooms people would cut the line by
entering the restroom through the exit, this problem was solved by stationing a security personnel by
the bathroom exit to make sure everyone went in the entrance and out the exit.
Fan feedback is crucial because it informs us about aspects of the event that were not favorable and
gives us an opportunity to improve those areas in an effort to give our fans the most enjoyable
experience possible. A reoccurring theme that I have noticed this season is complaints about intoxicated
fans. I do not necessarily understand why some of our fans get extremely impaired before a football
game, but they do, and there is not a whole lot we can do about it except eject fans that are too
intoxicated and eject fans who have smuggled alcohol in to the games. This becomes a risk management

issue because drunk people do stupid things that can endanger themselves and other fans. We have had
to up our security, police and medical staff on hand as well as promote our fanfone (text complaint
service) to quickly and professionally deal with intoxicated patrons.
In Dr. Mary Wells liability and risk management class I learned a lot about managing the risk of an
event, but I never imagined transferring those skills into the workplace so quickly. One big risk that we
had to deal with was the threat of thunder and lightning during the September 27th Utah v. Washington
State game. Pac 12 rules state that the event must be halted if lightning strikes come within eight miles
of the stadium, and all fans must be evacuated to an area of refuge. The concourse floor at Rice Eccles
stadium is not large enough to fit all 48,000 fans and we did not have a designated area of refuge to put
the fans if lightning actually did strike. With lightning in the forecast the week before the game we had
to scramble to come up with a plan of what to do with all of our fans in the case of an evacuation. We
ended up settling on asking fans to move to the concourse and continue moving out to either their cars,
the field house, or the football center. It was very interesting seeing the work and thought that goes into
creating a safety plan for unfavorable weather in order to keep our fans safe.
This last weekend we had a record breaking attendance at the Utah v. USC game and upon winning all
46,160 fans decided they wanted to get on the field the second the game ended. We allow our fans to
walk around the stands and enter the field through any of the ramps but they are not allowed to jump
over the railing or rush the field as they call it. We were very lucky that only one fan was injured in the
mayhem that ensued this Saturdays win (the fan was intoxicated and jumped over the railing). We have
signs posted at the bottom of each aisle stating do not trespass but this is not enough. This week we
have been developing a plan to prevent fans from jumping the eight foot drop down onto the field and
to shift the liability onto them if they do jump. I have been working closely with our client risk manager
to file injury and medical reports and to investigate each risk that comes up in our events, I really enjoy
seeing the skills learned in Marys Liability and Risk management class being put to work here on our
campus.
I feel like my goals and objectives have assisted me in becoming more comfortable in my position as well
as a better employee. I have made significant improvements in my systems of organization which has
exponentially benefited my scheduling process. I have begun to move into the more advanced stages of
managing events, which has been a big step for personal and professional development. I have learned
so many new aspects of management and feel like I have opened doors for careers that I could not have
imagined a year ago. I look forward to progressing as a student, employee and manager and cannot wait
to improve myself through the goals and objectives I set at the beginning of this semester.