Every summer, Ana interns at our Harrisonburg shop. A few months later, experience is gained in cutting straight duct, running transitions, and working on a commercial job site. That is what National Intern Day, in July, is really about — the point where a career in the trades actually starts.
At Young’s Mechanical Solutions, we think the best way to grow a commercial mechanical company is to build the next generation of it ourselves.
Meet Ana: Three Summers, Three Sides of the Business
Ana Young is the daughter of our founders, Jake and Darla Young, and she has been around this business since it started. As a teenager, she rode along on service calls when the company was just getting off the ground.
Now she is finishing an accounting degree at West Virginia Wesleyan, and she has spent every summer since rotating through a different part of the company.
- First summer: running service calls in the field
- Second summer: fabrication work in the sheet metal shop
- This summer: interning with Darla on the financial and administrative side — accounts payable and receivable, payroll, and job cost coding
Her time in the shop started with slips and drives. Under skilled mentors, she moved up to straight duct, transitions, and elbows. She also helped install our automated plasma cutter and saw firsthand how much faster and cleaner production became with less material waste.
With one year of college left, Anna is planning on a career with the family business — and she has already seen it from the truck, the shop floor, and the office.
Internships and Apprenticeships Are Different Doors to the Same Trade
An internship is a look inside. It is a season to try the work, meet the crews, and find out whether commercial mechanical fits you before you commit to it.
An apprenticeship is the path itself — paid, hands-on training alongside experienced technicians, working toward a licensed trade with real earning power and no student debt attached to it.
Both matter, because commercial mechanical work is not something you learn from a manual. You learn it standing next to someone who has done it for twenty years.
Why We Invest in It
The skilled trades face a genuine labor shortage across Virginia and West Virginia. Experienced sheet metal mechanics, pipefitters, plumbers, and controls technicians are retiring faster than they are being replaced.
We would rather train the next crew than compete for one. Because we run in-house sheet metal, piping, plumbing, controls, and ductwork fabrication crews, an intern or apprentice here can see the whole scope of commercial mechanical work — not one narrow slice of it.
Thinking About the Trades?
If you are a student, a recent graduate, or someone weighing a career change, commercial mechanical is worth a serious look. The work is skilled, the demand is steady, and the ceiling is higher than most people expect.
To ask about internship or apprenticeship opportunities with Young’s Mechanical Solutions, contact our team at 540-214-2745 or stop by our shop at 1043 S High St, Harrisonburg, VA.
To every intern and apprentice putting in the work this summer — happy National Intern Day.