GEORGIA COUNTY INTERNSHIP SPOTLIGHT
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Raul Puentes Interns with Gwinnett County
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For Raul Puentes, working in county government began as a family affair. His older sister works in Gwinnett County's Yellow River Water Reclamation Facility, and when Puentes was looking for jobs post-graduation, she sent him the listing for an internship in the Department of Water Resources (DWR). Eager to practice his skills in data analytics and learn more about local government, Puentes applied and began his internship with the county in June 2024.
Puentes graduated from UGA with a Bachelor of Business Administration and a concentration in management information systems (MIS). Before the internship, he had limited knowledge of county government operations, but the internship experience opened his eyes to the breadth of county government services and responsibilities. Additionally, his time as an intern was an opportunity to work independently and develop early career skills.
During the internship, Puentes worked on a significant project to evaluate water consumption in schools and daycares in Gwinnett County. Using DWR billing data, Puentes extracted information representing water consumption in county educational institutions over the last three years. Puentes then calculated the updated sewer capacity figures for each institution. Using his calculations, Puentes made recommendations for Gwinnett's waste flow estimation guidelines and the sewer master plan.
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Puentes received over 400,000 lines of data at the beginning of his internship, which he had to sort through to identify schools and daycares. After identifying around 200 institutions, Puentes used enrollment and employment data to break down sewer capacity per capita. He calculated the average daily amount per person per school, which reflected the actual water consumption per student/child in schools and daycares in the county.
Puentes' work was critical for informing the county's understanding of school sewer capacities. Lorraine Campagne, Puentes' supervisor and the development support section manager for DWR, explained that schools in the county are large and often clustered geographically. She noted that Puentes' research will help the county assign more accurate sewer capacities for schools and other businesses and institutions, helping to balance and optimize the entire county wastewater system.
In addition to cleaning and analyzing the data, Puentes also created critical data visualizations – one of which led to an unexpected finding. "My favorite part of the internship was once I started creating data visualizations in Excel because there was one chart in particular where I was able to display a high school with extremely high monthly consumption…it turned out to be a massive leak spanning two years," Puentes described. He also presented his findings and a brief overview of his internship to DWR leadership.
“The internship has been eye-opening since the first day,” Puentes reflected, “I’m finally grasping some of the gravity of how beneficial DWR is.” He also noted that the internship instilled new confidence in his data analysis, Excel, and ArcGIS mapping skills. "These experiences will definitely be beneficial in meeting my future goals," he said. Puentes also said he was "100%" more willing to engage in local government, mainly because of the direct impact that local government work has on the community. As of September 2024, Puentes can now continue his commitment to local government and the community – he now works full-time as a business analyst with Gwinnett County.
To learn more about the GCIP, please visit our website at https://www.accg.org/caf_index.php.
