By Payton Kaufman ’24 

Taking charge in her position with American Municipal Power (AMP), senior public relations and journalism and media communications student Julia Grimm and her team were awarded the 2021 AMP Employee Innovator Award. 

Twice annually, AMP awards an employee or team for their creativity. Grimm and the Communications Team were presented with the award for their work in producing the 50th Anniversary campaign. 

“I created most of the awards videos for our annual conference,” Grimm said. “I built a template from scratch and would do the work in Adobe Premier editing software to create those videos.” 

Grimm’s award-winning work was done while she was a student intern for AMP. She has now worked her way into a part-time position, with more opportunity ahead. After her yearlong internship ended, Grimm was offered her current role of digital content specialist – a position created to highlight her abilities. 

“My supervisor saw, and commented, on how I brought skills to the team that weren’t there before, especially in videography,” Grimm said. 

Her skills have now led to a full-time job offer from AMP before graduating. After completing her final semester, Grimm will begin a full-time position. 

“As a digital content specialist, I will be responsible for producing videos, working on photography, website content management, and social media development,” Grimm said. “This is not a role that can be done part-time, so I am looking forward to the challenge.” 

Grimm said earning this role with AMP could not have happened without the amazing work her classmates, faculty, and staff do every day in the Otterbein Department of Communications. She saw firsthand how her friends were turning internships into jobs, inspiring her to keep working hard and honing her skills. 

“At Otterbein, we are not just here to learn from a book. We are here to put those theories and techniques into practice,” she said. “I would not be where I am today without the hands-on experiences and the encouragement from professors to go after internship opportunities.”