Today’s guest was

Matthew Lague, an Omni-Channel Fulfillment Planner for the CVS/pharmacy division of CVS Health.

CVS Health is a $150 billion company located in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.  The company is ranked 18th on the Forbes Global 500 list of the top 500 companies in the world.   CVS Health is ranked 7th on the Forbes 500 list of American based companies.

Our host today was Imani Turner.

Imani welcomes Matt Lague to the Hope Life Skills class at Hope High School.

Imani introduces Matt to her Life Skills classmate to open today’s class. Well done, Imani!

Hope Life Skills students welcome Matt to their class with a professional handshake, good eye contact, a genuine smile and an expression of appreciation for his visit to the class following Imani’s introduction.

Matt began today’s class with a check!

Matt gave the class a generous donation from his company, CVS Health, to sponsor two students to the National Youth Leadership Forum on CSI and Law in Washington, D.C. this July.

Matt then shared a small portion of his personal story,

from his admission to the University of Rhode Island as a Finance major to eventually transitioning to a Supply Chain Management major and his own internships.  “I found early on I was more interested in Supply Chain Management than Finance so I switched my major”  Matt said.

Our conversation then moved to Matt’s

announcement of this summer’s CVS Health – Hope Life Skills internships.

“CVS has been extending the opportunity of a paid summer internship at the CVS Health corporate offices in Woonsocket, Rhode Island to the Life Skills class for the past 3 years. 

There are two internships available

this summer.   The hourly pay will be $15 per hour.  You can expect to work between 25 and 32 hours a week.   And, you’ll have opportunities to work in a number of different areas in our division:  supply chain, computer programming, pharmacy, marketing and more. The process for getting the internship will be similar to getting a job. 

You’ll be interviewed. 

We’ll expect you to have a resume.  And, before we make the final decision on the internships,

we’ll get Mr Cronin’s feedback on our candidates. 

We’ll ask him about your brands. 

Are they dependable; do they show up when they’re supposed to?  Do they work hard?  Do they ask questions?  Are they honest people with good character?  Do they have empathy?  Will they be good representatives of our company, CVS Health, and your class, Hope Life Skills?  Will they make us proud to have them part of our CVS Health team?

When this Life Skills class visits our corporate offices in Woonsocket on      May 5th, I’ll have more information for you.”

Students from the 2015 Life Skills class stand outside the ‘Customer Support’ building on the CVS Health campus in Woonsocket, Rhode Island before starting their meetings with the CVS staff.

Matt concluded his visit by encouraging students to push out of their comfort zone, meet new people, ask questions and grow their networks.   He mentioned how important his college internship was in helping him find out what kind of career he was really interested in.  He also informed students of the prevelance of emails in companies today.   “People are very busy during the day at most companies including CVS.  As a result, we email each other to get our questions answered and to disseminate information. You need to be confident in your written expression because people will often evaluate you based on how well you express yourself in writing.  And, because we depend on email communication so much, we must be disciplined to check it often.”

Matt then met students during the Life Skills end of class networking session.

Deyreni Ferreras exchanges business cards with Matt as Gerardo Casteneda waits to the same.  Kyra Ferrage (front) preceded Deyreni exchanging cards with Matt.