Circadian Risk’s Interns Work On Real Security Projects
In 2019, Andrew Ruehle, a freshman at Michigan State, attended the university’s Criminal Justice Career Fair. He was looking at companies in the criminal justice field when he ran into Daniel R. Young, the founder of Circadian Risk. Andrew had always been interested in security and law enforcement, and hadn’t realized a career in technology was available to graduates with a criminal justice degree. His senior year, he attended the career fair and met Danieliel once again.
“I really got talking to him about what Circadian Risk is trying to achieve, and I found it interesting; something that was really different. That's when he told me that they were thinking about starting an internship program,” said Andrew.
Andrew became one of the first cohort of interns at Circadian Risk. Now, two years later, Andrew is not only an employee, he’s also managing the internship program.
What do Circadian Risk interns do?
The internship program started in 2022, when Circadian Risk began focusing on scenario-based risk assessments. The team needed to develop content about specific risk incidents, such as fires, active shooter incidents, or an insider threat.
“We wanted an inflow of content creation, for different scenario-based assessments,” says Evan Thomas, who initially spearheaded the internship program. “And we wanted to create a pipeline of good candidates to grow our company.”
The interns, who are with the company for a college semester, are responsible for generating that content. Each intern is assigned a risk scenario, researches that risk, and creates content that can be used in an assessment.
“They're becoming subject matter experts,” says Andrew. “They analyze the broad assumptions of a risk event and what causes it, and learn how to measure probability and severity factors, as well as what countermeasures our clients should have in place to mitigate this risk. If it were to happen, what would a client need to do to respond and remediate at their organization?”
Interns work on question sets related to the scenario, so that clients can download a ready-made assessment for a particular threat. The content they create is currently being used by some of the largest fortune 500 companies in the world. Circadian Risk also brings interns into other projects, and allows them to shadow team members that work in areas of interest to them.
“We want to make sure every day is different for them, so we get them involved in client projects, “ said Andrew. Interns have worked on data scrubbing, bug testing, exporting contacts of potential clients, and reformatting narrative reports, for example.
Interns are part of our company culture
Circadian Risk has a long history when it comes to both Michigan State University and internship; founder Danieliel Young and chief executive Michael Martin both attended the school.
“I was recruited by Guardsmark at the Michigan State Criminal Justice Career Fair,” said Michael. “I then became the person at Guardsmark to recruit from Michigan State. I have done the program every year since I graduated, for Guardsmark, Allied Universal and now, for Circadian Risk.”
It was at the Michigan State Criminal Justice Career Fair that Michael first met Danieliel, who was then a freshman. Guardsmark didn’t have an internship and had no positions for freshmen, but Danieliel came back every year until Michael hired him as an intern.
“I almost got fired for bringing him on as an intern,” said Michael. “But he just was so persistent. By the time he became a junior, I was like, okay, I can hire you. I worked it out with Michigan State, but I had to jump through a few additional hoops with Guardsmark.”
Daniel went on to work for Guardsmark, and eventually founded Circadian Risk. Their history with Michigan State led them to develop their own internship program at Circadian Risk in 2022. Since its inception, there have been between 50 and 60 interns, and we’ve been bringing on interns from schools other than Michigan State as well.
Looking for an internship?
After graduation, Andrew found himself working for Circadian Risk as an employee. He’s found that he enjoys being part of a startup.
“I'm one for high risk, high reward. I really found that this is where I want to be,” said Andrew.
Looking to join us as an intern? Get in touch with Circadian Risk and join our team.
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