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As an employer of choice, Louisville Water is always looking for creative ways to enhance employee well-being. One of those ways is through the three-month Student Summer Helper program, which started informally in 2005.
The Summer Helper Program was developed to support increased summer workloads, while also offering employees’ children, who are enrolled in college, a chance to earn money and gain work experience.
Originally, it was a union seasonal position but evolved to include this employee benefit component today. It was officially defined in the union contract in 2011.
“The program is both a benefit to employees and a way to handle extra summer work,” said Lorna Bille, Louisville Water’s Human Resources Coordinator. “It gives employees’ college-aged children the opportunity to earn money for school and gain valuable experience, while helping departments manage seasonal demands.”
The program starts in May and typically lasts until mid-August. Applicants must fulfill several requirements. They must be relatives of a current or retired Louisville Water employee, at least 18 years old, and enrolled in college/university/trade school.
Bille said she tries to pair students up with a department that is in line with their major or interests.
“In the early years, when it was a union-only program, the work was often very labor-intensive,” Bille said. “For example, grounds crews frequently dealt with poison ivy, scrapes, and bruises. The work today still varies, but placement has expanded into less physically demanding areas.”
This year, Louisville Water had 14 summer helpers – a record high for the company.
For Adrienne Nalley, a medical laboratory science student at Indiana University Southeast, her time in the Water Quality & Compliance department is preparing her for real-world situations.
“Nothing is perfect,” Nalley said. “Everything changes every day. And we get to learn real skills on how to adapt to those changes… compared to the perfect setup that school teaches you.”
Lauren Potts, a double major in biology and neuroscience at the University of Kentucky (UK) started out in the IT department, where she worked last summer too.
About halfway through the summer, after she finished a few chemistry classes, her dad mentioned her experience to the Water Quality team. They let her shadow for a couple weeks to see if she enjoyed it.
“I think I was helpful enough to them that they let me stay for the rest of the summer,” Potts joked.
Working in the lab at Louisville Water inspired Potts to join a wet chemistry lab at UK to further develop her skills.
“A lot of the skills that I’ve been able to further develop and learn here can be applicable to my degree,” Potts said. “They can also help me slow down and visualize what I’m doing and how it can be put into a place of work.”
Student experiences vary depending on the location and the department they’re in.
While Potts and Nalley were running lab tests and analyzing water samples, Alexandra Sweat was organizing equipment for our field crews and testing meters in the meter shop.
Sweat said she chose the meter shop for the supportive environment and the women her dad said she’d be working around.
Sweat, who’s an incoming freshman at Purdue University and plans to study engineering, said this role gave her a safe space to explore new things.
“I’m going into engineering, and that’s one of my big worries, is like, ‘Am I going to have a bunch of male colleagues?’” Sweat said. “Is there going to be somebody there I can relate to, or shares any of my work struggles?”
She said it’s been nice to work around other women and experience a work environment that prioritizes work-life balance and family.
“It’s just nice to see that you can have a career in a place like this, and they’ll work around your schedule and, you know, it’s not a big deal.”
Most of the summer helpers will wrap up their time at Louisville Water in the next few weeks. Thank you to all the students who lent their time and talents this summer.
Below is a list of the 2025 Summer Helpers and the department they supported.
- Kalli Blair, Risk
- James Brooks, IT-End User Support
- Zyan Estes, IT-End User Support
- Ron’Neal Flippins, Distribution Water Quality
- Marissa Foster, Distribution Water Quality
- Connor Fromme, Customer Service
- Kate Howard, Distribution Planning & Admin
- Anisa Long, IT-PMO and System Support
- Aniya Long, Communications/HR Diversity
- Adrienne Nalley, Water Quality & Compliance
- Jack Neal, Communications
- Lauren Potts, Water Quality & Compliance
- Alexandra Sweat, Meter Reading (Local 1683 union)
- Ayushi Yadav, Service Applications Processing
