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by Stephen Parezo

April 11, 2005—It takes a certain type of individual to accept an internship in a foreign country and work for a company there for six months or longer while being away from home, family, friends and probably everything that was familiar to them.

Fiducial has three French interns—Brice Junet, Vincent Bourgait and Clementine Gras—doing just that working at its Technical and Administrative Support Center (TASC) in Columbia, MD. They are here due to a partnership between Fiducial Inc. and its parent company, Fiducial France which employs several of the interns' parents.

As part of this internship, they will often encounter strangers, converse in a foreign language, drive on crowded roadways and be introduced to many new kinds of food.

Interning at Fiducial's Technical and Administrative Assistance Center (TASC) in Columbia, MD, are from left, Brice Junet, Clementine Gras and Vincent Bourgait.

Taking notes

Junet, a graduate MBA student in France where he specialized in international business, works as a marketing intern. This internship is the last qualification he needs to complete his MBA degree requirements. After he leaves Fiducial in mid-August, he will write a report on his internship experience and submit it in September which will be graded.

This isn't Junet's first internship. He previously worked for two banks in France and for a non-profit group in the San Francisco Bay Area.

As a marketing intern Junet has been involved in a number of projects. One that particularly fired up his imagination was writing a report on improving landing pages for the fiducial.com web site.

"I tried to express my ideas by trying to redesign the landing pages," he said. "I liked this project because it was both analytical and creative."

A photography buff, Junet took his digital camera with him and his fellow interns when they recently toured some of the sights in Washington, D.C. Despite some cold and rainy weather, they managed to see the U.S. Capitol, The Mall and the Lincoln Memorial. They also lunched at a restaurant in Chinatown and sampled the nightlife in Georgetown.

On a mission

Bourgait has a degree in business administration from Sup 'TG Business School in Blois. As an intern in the training department, he's been working on budgets for the company owned offices. "That's my mission," he said.

Working on the budgets he gets a breakdown of the total operating expenses for each of Fiducial's individual offices—including stationery, coffee, paper and supplies—and helps keep track of some of the bills for these items used on an ongoing basis.

He decided to intern at Fiducial because "it's very good experience" and thinks this may lead to a career with Fiducial France. He might, for instance, want to pursue accounting because his father works in accounting for the company and he enjoys analyzing numbers "which are very important."

"I see the general vision of the company in numbers," said Bourgait. "They tell you how the company is doing."

His first impression of TASC left a positive impression.

"I like the ambience," he said. "I had a good feeling about it because the people are very friendly."

While the food here may not be quite what he's used to back home, Bourgait has developed a taste for several American favorites such as macaroni and cheese, hamburgers and ribs. He admitted that "ribs in the U.S. are famous in France."

Opening doors

The youngest of the trio, Gras will be staying at TASC through June 2006. She wanted to work as an intern in the marketing department because she has "always been interested in the way to make people choose your company and choose your services."

Gras has been involved in finding photos on the Internet that could be used in Fiducial's promotional efforts for its 2005 convention October 3-6 in San Francisco. She looks for online pictures that present or convey the types of services that Fiducial provides its clients. Gras also lends a hand in the efforts to promote the Fiducial brand for company offices that need to belong to the local chamber of commerce.

Like the other interns, she also enjoyed the trip to D.C. where she observed the diverse architecture of the Nation's Capital.

"There are different kinds of architecture [here] that don't come from the same country," she said. "It shows that in America there are a lot of other cultures."

Like her fellow interns, Gras says the future is an open book at this point. Before resuming her studies in college, she wants to take a year in the U.S. to discover what she would ultimately like to do as a career.

"When you work it's not the same thing as when you study," she said. "I will study what I want to be sure that I will love what I do after that. I will open the doors that I want to open."

Stephen Parezo is the Media Manager for Fiducial.

Whatever your small business needs, your Fiducial tax and financial professional can analyze your situation and recommend an appropriate action plan. To locate a Fiducial office nearest you on fiducial.com, see the Zip Code Locator located in the upper right hand corner of the page. Do you have a particular topic that we should be writing about that can help your business? Please send your suggestions to: stephen.parezo@fiducial.com.

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