Helena Wahlstrom: She’s a Keeper

The ever talented Helena came in today, as she often does, showing up and surprising me. I’ll be doing something, away from the office, like today, when I was taking stuff to the dump, and I’ll get a cheery text message.  “I’m at the office, would you like me to put up a story now?”

Interns from UMass have been working with us at GoNOMAD since 2004.   They do all kinds of work like writing articles, sending our emails, checking on things and organizing information for us.  We have had so many of them, and sometimes a few really stand out. Like Helena, who is from Helsinki.

She takes a story and really writes it.  Knows how to write a compelling lead, how to come up with the content, and always manages to find the right photos to go with her stories. I read through the pieces without any fear that I’ll have to rewrite them, or cut them, or do anything except read them like a reader, not an editor.  Beautiful.

Another thing that stuns me about Helena and some of the other great interns we have had is how facile they all are with keyboards, computers and working with data from the cloud.  Not intimidated, just plunge right in, and they create photo galleries, upload mailing lists, copy and paste massively, and in general, aren’t phased by the challenges that many of us oldsters cringe at. It’s marvelous!

I can’t wait to recommend Helena to an employer.  As I’ve described other very talented, modest, easy to get along with women who have worked for us here–“She’s a keeper. Hire her. You won’t regret it!”