From Interns to Impact: Reflecting on Summer 2026

Enbridge Sustain

By Catherine Highton, SVP, People, HomeServe

Now that summer is officially behind us and fall is underway, I’ve been taking some time to reflect on another fantastic season with our Progressive Pathways Internship Program, how much it has grown, and the genuine business impact our interns bring every single year.

Investing in early career talent isn’t just about filling seasonal roles, it’s about building a sustainable pipeline for long-term leadership. We built Progressive Pathways around a simple idea: bring on rising sophomores and juniors early, give them real ownership and invite them back for a second year so they can transition into full-time roles after graduation.

This summer was our third year running the program in Norwalk, where we welcomed 11 interns, including three returning participants! Huge shoutout to Morgan Montz, Eleanor Beck and Adriana Franzese for coming back to continue their journey with us. We also launched a pilot program in Chattanooga with a great cohort of 6 interns (4 internal team members and 2 external participants), expanding our talent community even further.

Over 10 weeks, our interns jumped straight into real work. A few standouts from this year:

  • An AI roleplay app that lets Customer Care agents practice challenging calls and get real-time feedback
  • An automation solution that eliminated nearly 4 hours of tedious, manual work every single business day
  • Cybersecurity enhancements that catch and patch critical vulnerabilities before code ever goes live
  • Onboarding and testing toolkits that teams across the company are already using to work faster and smarter

Beyond their day-to-day work, the cohort took part in executive Q&A sessions, personal branding workshops, final presentations and team outings including a Yankees game Among the most valuable experiences, though, were on-site depot visits, giving our interns a firsthand, boots-on-the-ground look at where our tradespeople work out of and how our front-line operations run every day.

Hearing their perspective at the end of the program was the best part. As one intern put it: "I came into this internship expecting to write code, and I left understanding what it takes to ship software inside a real company. I wasn't treated like 'just an intern', I was given autonomy and trusted to communicate directly with leaders."

At the end of the day, retention is our best measure of success. Over the last few years, we’ve welcomed former interns into full-time roles across finance, cybersecurity, account management, data analytics and marketing. Seeing colleagues like Christian Cinque, Jose Oliva, Matthew Chioditti, Zachary Colleran, Jadyn Reilly and Ahn Steimel thrive here full-time is the ultimate proof that this pipeline works.

To our 2026 cohort: thank you for the energy, curiosity and hard work you brought every day!

Interested in joining the next Progressive Pathways cohort, or know someone who might be? Keep an eye out for our 2027 application details coming soon.