The Intern's Blog
Here at Zisser, we continually welcome Interns who wish to learn more about International Trade. We are fortunate to have a number of aspiring students from various universities and community colleges interested in working with our company. Read what our interns have to say about their days working here at our company and their experiences in the over all compliance industry.
Greg Meyer
To say the least, I am not your typical intern at a customs law firm. I had a fair amount of exposure to international commerce prior to commencing my B.A. in International Business at San Diego State University. However, as a veteran of U.S. Coast Guard Law Enforcement, my international trade experience was limited to charging onto suspected narcotics smuggling vessels armed to the tooth and yelling "manos en el aire." As it turns out, this sort conduct is generally frowned upon in job interviews and in today's professional office culture.
Luckily for me, during my interview with the office manager Chinh Do and the Tradiance developer Steve Ungar, they were able to look past this aspect of my background and were able to see that I would be a great fit for this dynamic workplace. Aside from my law enforcement training, I had considerable leadership and managerial experience, and a technical background. Also, through almost four years of course work for my degree in international business, I had acquired a cursory knowledge of the import/export business, trade with Mexico, the Spanish language, marketing practices and managerial principals. The only thing that I was lacking was a venue in which I could gain experience that would bring all these concepts together in a real world environment.
On the first day of my internship, Chinh filled me in on the diverse nature of Zisser Group. She explained to me that aside from simply providing a vast array customs law services and solutions, this firm provided a multitude of other services which uniquely placed Zisser Group as a one-stop-shop for customs compliance. I then learned that this firm also provided Import Compliance services, C-TPAT supply chain certification assistance, training on customs classification both online and in person, and were developing an advanced automated customs classification system. I quickly became excited about the great learning experience I had before me.
Over the course of a few months here I had the opportunity to work with the very lovely and always chipper Customs Compliance Specialist Carime and C-TPAT Specialist Yennise. By working with Carime I was able to learn the ins and outs of the very complicated apparel classification process. For instance I am able to recite the difference between a plunging neck line and a boat shaped neck line as well as the subsequent effects on its HTS classification. I was also fortunate enough to have Carime delegate to me the opportunity to correlate and organize the 2010 multiple thousand page 2010 Harmonized Tariff Schedule for her office. By working with Yennise, not only was I informed about the complexities of international supply chain and the various steps taken for an import company to be C-TPAT certified the Department of Homeland Security, I was also first on her list of people that had the honor of putting together her brand new office chair.
Perhaps the most stimulating and rewarding aspect of my job was working side by side with the charismatic Steve Ungar, the Tradiance software developer. With him, I was able to experience the fast paced and exhilarating world of software and database development. I was given the role of testing the Tradiance automated classification system and insuring that it was parallel to manual apparel classification methods in terms of complexity. However, I quickly was able to see that this software also gives the advantage of vastly faster classification times and increased reliability, with the added benefit of being legally defensible. I also came to find out that there is no other automated customs related software with this capability in the market place. After seeing the potential of this product I am proud to say that I had my hands in on the creation process, at least in a very limited way. However, throughout the process I had the sneaking suspicion that my true role was that of a guinea pig. Down the road I would not be surprised to hear Tradiance marketed as, "so easy an intern from SDSU can use it!"
Another added benefit of doing my internship here at Zisser Group was that I had the opportunity to sit in on several Masters Method "webinars" given by Steve Zisser and Juan Moreno. With over 30 years of customs law and customs broker experience combined, they are able to share this knowledge with students to create a straight forward customs classification process that makes it vastly more efficient and precise. After having been exposed to this course for the cost of months of wage free labor, I am sure that this training will be a nice addition to my resume.
So after a few months of working here I was able to take my military training and experience, and the theoretical knowledge acquired from University class rooms and I was able to combine it all in a real world business environment to create a well rounded educational opportunity. I now am able to see that my time here will be a great source of experience for the future. In the end it worked out quite well that I wasn't your typical intern at a customs law firm, because as it turns out, Zisser Group is not your typical customs law firm.
Now I just have to go find a job!
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