Brady Brown and Joel Hernandez with Do It Yourself Don, which was sponsored by Do It Best in 2005 as one of 102 Mastodons on Parade, the university's public art project. Inspiration for the design came from the company's employees, who felt the Do It Yourself persona was the ultimate representation of their company.
Joel Hernandez, a PFW student who is interning at Do It Best, and Brady Brown, manager of internal auditing at the company.
Brady Brown, manager of internal auditing at Do It Best, and Joel Hernandez, a PFW student who is interning at the company.
Do It Best refuels with help from PFW pipeline
By Blake Sebring
June 27, 2024
At the start of his junior year, Purdue University Fort Wayne finance major Joel Hernandez found an internship opportunity with Do It Best. He had no idea he was becoming part of the company’s PFW pipeline.
Started in 1945 and growing to become Indiana’s largest private company in terms of sales, Do It Best is the anchor tenant of Electric Works and employs about 450 people locally. Meg Underwood, former director of professional development and outreach for the Doermer School of Business, said it’s likely Do It Best employs more than 110 former Mastodons, according to LinkedIn.
That includes Hernandez’s boss, Brady Brown, a 2016 graduate who earned a business degree with a concentration in accounting. Brown is now the manager of internal auditing. He interned at Do It Best from 2014 to 2016 and started working there full time in 2018. Brown can rattle off the names of various other PFW graduates who also interned at Do It Best in his department and who now are employed there full time. Many have moved into the company hierarchy.
“We kind of have a history of bringing in folks to show them what it’s like to work here—the mission, what we do—and then have that resonate with them so they want to come back,” Brown said. “It’s not just on the wall there.”
The sign that is on the wall highlights the Do It Best philosophy of “Serving others as we would like to be served” and the company goal of “Helping our members grow and achieve their dreams.”
Ryan Cooley graduated as a Mastodon in 2015 with a marketing and management degree, but started in the graphics department as an assistant in 2016 before moving to marketing. Now he’s a human resources generalist.
“When it comes to people applying, I don’t put an onus on where people graduate from, but it doesn’t surprise me that PFW graduates end up being some of the most qualified for the job.”
“I think there’s a lot of intentionality in the partnership with PFW over the past few years,” Cooley said. “We’ve been an employer of choice in the community for a while, so if you are someone who goes to school in the area and likes the area, I think we are naturally on the list of places to check out. When it comes to people applying, I don’t put an onus on where people graduate from, but it doesn’t surprise me that PFW graduates end up being some of the most qualified for the job.”
Cooley said a major factor is the enthusiasm of PFW grads and the strong foundation. That’s especially true with former interns who are already trained, vetted, and experienced in what is expected.
Now a senior, Hernandez said he’s only taken three accounting classes, but his attitude and willingness to learn made him stand out in the interview process.
Partly, Brown said, that’s a testament to the strength of PFW’s business program.
“By the time I left PFW and this internship, I was prepared for public accounting, and I was ready to go in there and contribute on day one,” Brown said. “I started in public accounting less than a month after I graduated.”
But he always knew where he wanted to end up. When Brown got the call asking if he’d like to return to Do It Best, his wife cried because the opportunity was such a blessing to their family.
“There are ebbs and flows to everything like maybe you sleep bad one night,” Brown said, “but you always have the constant of knowing the environment and the people you are going to be around all day, and that just helps soften any of the other stuff.”
Brown said he’s proud of what Hernandez has accomplished during his internship, which ends in August, partly because of the student’s appetite to absorb everything.
“When I was an intern, I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and these folks poured into me, invested in me, and gave me a look at what my future path options might be. They opened up doors, and I feel like it’s my duty the invest in the next generation and fill their cup. I’m not one of those who wants to pull the ladder up, I want to push it down farther to help who is coming next.”
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