AUSTIN — Today, Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, M.D. highlights the Texas General Land Office's (GLO) Summer Internship Program and the incredible opportunities for real-life work experience this program offers GLO's summer interns, including our amazing 2023 participants.

"As Land Commissioner, a mother, and a steward of Texas' precious School Fund, I believe to my core that high-quality education is an essential building block of our state's strong foundation," said Commissioner Buckingham. "The GLO's Summer Internship Program provides students with a critical part of their educations—real-life work experience—by teaching them professional skills that will be critical for their futures and careers. In return, the hard work each intern puts into their education helps support the mission of the GLO—to serve the State of Texas and its people. I would like to thank this year's interns for their excellence, and I look forward to the excitement and possibilities of next summer."

Students in the GLO's Summer Internship Program work in several different divisions across the agency. Additionally, they are involved in substantive, meaningful work that supports vital agency functions. The following are the program areas in which GLO interns worked this summer, and some of the highlights of their efforts:

• Coastal Management
  • Helped conduct data analysis during “2023 Memorial Weekend” fecal indicator contamination event.
• Oil Spill
  • Converted the State Funded Ledger into a user-friendly, fillable form to be used by all field response officers while on spill response, and added a digital signature feature. 
• Minerals Audit
  • Gained real-life work experience for futures contributing to Texas' robust oil and gas industry.
• Financial Management
  • Worked directly with inflows and outflows including grant monitoring, reconciliations, cash analysis and mineral customer account balances. Additionally, conducted user acceptance testing for financial dashboards. 
• Legal
  • Assisted with many different legal projects that reflected the GLO's diverse practice groups, including energy, real estate, environmental, disaster recovery, etc., and directly benefited the people of Texas.
• Human Resources
  • Learned several essential tasks, from timekeeping to training, that helped employees in their day-to-day duties at the GLO.  
• Surveying Services
  • Greatly enhanced access to important historical documents for GLO staff, other state agencies, and the general public. 
• Geographic Information Systems
  • Helped develop a new Permanent School Fund (PSF) layer based on the Railroad Commission land grid with GLO attribute information.
  •  Aided in developing a series of ArcGIS StoryMaps on dynamic aspects of Texas history.
• Community Development and Revitalization
  • Helped review grant request applications to make processing faster and easer for Texans in need of housing and disaster recovery support.
• Communications/External Relations
  • Created social media content to help promote GLO's Adopt-A-Beach and Save Texas History programs

These are just a few of the awesome high points of the GLO's 2023 Summer Internship Program. Students who are interested in expanding their educations should send in their applications next summer for a chance to work with the oldest state agency in Texas while giving back to their communities.

Visit glo.texas.gov for more information about the GLO, our mission, and the agency's various divisions.

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