Recent Interns

Sean Quach

My name is Sean Quach, and I am a recent West Aurora High School graduate (Class of 2024). I am interested in becoming a CNC programmer in the future, and I feel fortunate enough that Smith & Richardson will be the ones to help and guide me along the path I decided to take in life. In my final semester in high school, I knew that I did not want to go to a 4-year university since many school subjects did not really pique my interests. However, the introduction of the world of manufacturing by my former welding and machining teacher opened my eyes to something I would not have thought of doing.

After learning various things in manufacturing and after learning how to operate manual mills and lathes, being introduced to CNC machines sparked my interest in the manufacturing field. Once I graduated high school, I was fortunate enough to be accepted into Smith & Richardsons internship program, which will allow me to see if I

really want to pursue a career in manufacturing . In this program I learned how to operate many different measuring tools and how to operate CNC lathes.

Experience in Quality Control:

For a good portion of my time for my internship I was put in our quality control lab. Here I learned how to operate high-tech measuring machines such as the Comparator, Keyence, CMM, Profilometer, and many other machines allowing me to measure our parts and to verify the quality of our parts. For the time I was in QC, everyone was very helpful and approachable which helped me understand how to properly operate our metrology equipment and to inspect our products. Overall, my experience in QC was very helpful since all of the things I have learned will be applied to my time in production.

Production Experience:

After my time in quality, I transitioned into production which allowed me to get hands on with a CNC lathe. At first, they had me shadow one of the more experienced CNC operators, who showed me the things I would need to know when running our CNC machines such as tool changes, tooling location, stock location, alarm meanings, and checking our parts. But once I learned and gained experience from shadowing, I then started to transition to operating the CNC machine by myself. At first, I was a bit nervous about running the machine by myself since I was new to the machines. However, once I got more experience with tool changes and the different alarms, I felt comfortable running the machines.

Present:

Once the upcoming school year (2024-25) was approaching, I knew manufacturing was

something I wanted to pursue my career in. Luckily for me, after my internship was up, Smith & Richardson offered me a full-time position as one of their CNC and I accepted. Spending my summer interning for S&R opened my eyes and interest in machining more by seeing all of the various parts that we manufacture. As I move forward with my education at Waubonsee Community College to become a CNC programmer, S&R will be here helping me along the way and guiding me on the right path. I gained a lot of knowledge and experience through this internship that will help me further my career in the manufacturing field.