The 60-Year-Old Intern
On her way toward a second career in public policy, Lorinda Visnick spent her summer as an intern at the Massachusetts State House. Many of her fellow interns were a third of her age.
The 60-Year-Old Intern
Lorinda Visnick (CAS’87), who’s pursuing a career in public policy, just completed a summer internship at the Massachusetts State House
Like most summer interns on a break from university courses, Lorinda Visnick soaked up everything she could in her position, diving into opportunities that would prepare her for her chosen career and earning praise from her supervisors. But Visnick (CAS’87) was no typical intern: she’s 60 years old.
The mother of four adult children—who lives in Beverly, Mass., with husband Alan Visnick (Wheelock’84, Sargent’87)—recently wrapped up an internship at the Massachusetts State House, where many of her fellow interns were a third of her age.
That’s right, Visnick, a computer science major and basketball star while at Boston University, finished a full career in technology and is just getting started on her next one: public policy.
In 2014, she was elected to the Beverly School Committee, a role that gave her a front-row seat to a debate over a proposed affordable housing development in the city. Visnick became fascinated by the promise of housing that offered wraparound services like childcare vouchers, healthy eating assistance, and workforce training.
“And I was thinking, somebody should be studying this,” she says. “This is a perfect petri dish, because we have plenty of affordable housing in Beverly that doesn’t offer any services. I looked around for a bit and I couldn’t find anybody [researching the issue]. And I said, ‘Why not me?’”
Visnick has earned an MS in organizational behavioral studies from Endicott College and is working on a PhD in public policy at UMass Boston. Her summer internship was with Senator Jason Lewis (D-Fifth Middlesex) at the Massachusetts State House. Visnick says that when she completes her PhD, she may want to influence housing policy; the internship was a good opportunity to see the wheels of government at work. “It was like, okay, let’s see what the options are,” she says. “I did the same thing for myself as I did with my children, which is use the summer. You find out what you don’t want to do. And that is incredibly valuable.”
Bostonia caught up with Visnick to ask her about life as an intern, and what took her by surprise.
Q&A
with Lorinda Visnick
Bostonia: What were your day-to-day tasks as an intern?
Visnick: I mostly worked with [Lewis’] legislative counsel, a wonderful woman named Emily Reynolds. Any given day, they’re going to have a hearing, and any meeting has an agenda, we’re going to hear this handful of bills. And so what I was doing was researching those bills and summarizing them. If it was a bill that was heard previously, we have the old version of the summary that we compare. Did the bill change at all? Maybe not the funnest thing, but it has to get done and it gives me a wide breadth of the bills that are at the state level right now.
I was really fortunate to be there during the creation and the processing of the cell phone ban bill, and one of the research tasks I was given was to find all the other states that have looked at the same issue, whether they passed it or not. And you try to think about what worked in other states and if we can take advantage of that. Can we learn from that and position our bill in such a way that it will pass?
The state house has a ton of interns all summer long—well over 100. There is a woman whose job it is to set up senators and House of Representatives [speakers] to come talk to us. The last week, we heard from both the lieutenant governor and the governor. We heard from various members of the legislature and people who work there, like the clerks. So it was very educational in that respect. On our last day, we went to an event that [Lewis] went to. They’re going to build some affordable housing in Winchester, which he represents—transit-oriented housing right next to the train station. That’s my area I want to study: housing. So that event, for me, was cool—to hear Governor Maura Healey, up close and personal, talking about how we need more housing, and we’ve done all these investments, and here’s where one is going to be built.
Bostonia: In thinking back on your state house internship, what is one valuable takeaway and what was something that was surprising?
So, despite the negative reputation of government—it seems like nothing’s happening and why is it taking so gosh dang long [to propose and pass legislation]—I was there when something really happened. From a surprising point of view, even though Massachusetts has this reputation of being incredibly Democrat-run, there is a lot of work happening back-and-forth across the aisle. It is not like what we see in the news about what’s happening at the next level. That’s a happy surprise.
Bostonia: Some of your fellow interns were a third of your age. What was that like for you?
I’m used to coaching. I’m around young people a lot. I don’t think there was anything super embarrassing. I do think sometimes I could tell other people were surprised. There were times somebody would get on the elevator and they would look at me, and my interpretation is that they would be expecting me to be wearing a Senate pin or my badge or something. But I think, in general, the other five interns who were in Senator Lewis’ office this summer were all just wide-eyed and were trying to learn. And none of us knew each other before we got there. We all were studying different things. That part of it was really very cool.
Bostonia: What’s next for you?
I am up for reelection [for Beverly School Committee member], and I have a challenger. My immediate, short-term goal is to try to get reelected, and then go on vacation. I have two more years of coursework [for my PhD] and then at least a year of research and writing, and then you defend [your dissertation]. I’m not sure at that point in time how I will want to use my research findings to influence housing policy. Things are changing a lot right now. Massachusetts just passed the housing bond bill, and they have the MBTA Communities Act, and all those things are good things. I’m trying not to think about job prospects right now. This is the research I want to do, and maybe we have to cross that bridge when we get there.
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