High school is usually the time when a teen gets their first job. Most decide to stick with the basics: bagging groceries, serving at fast-food restaurants or babysitting; however, that wasn’t enough for senior Micheal Boehm. He decided to take it one step further.

Boehm decided to take up an internship at the First National Bank of Omaha (FNBO). He found out about it through Intern Omaha, a site that helps high school students get hands-on experience in the fields of work that interest them. This was an exciting opportunity for him since it would allow him to get a jumpstart on his passion for the industrial tech industry.

“It will change the whole scope of my future,” Boehm said. “I no longer have to go in the world saying I don’t have any experience. In IT there is a huge emphasis on having experience rather than having pieces of paper saying you can do something. With that in mind, it allows me to skip a huge hurdle that most people struggle with at the beginning of their careers.”

Boehm spends most weekdays at the bank helping the building run. Being an IT specialist, especially in a place that relies on software to run, holds major importance. He can be found either messing around in the office, helping the building function from the comfort of his own personal computer, or out and about in the other parts of the branch troubleshooting their technological problems.

Being a part of the only IT department for the FNBO, Boehm travels often. While his main office is located in Ralston, he will often take a company vehicle and drive to the other locations. There, he inspects the wiring, routers, systems and more to ensure that the branch will be able to function to its fullest.

“One of my best experiences entirely is just being told that I am able to just explore the network and devices and figure out what things do and get that hands-on experience,” Boehm said. “As for worst experiences, that would be when I was first starting out. I was tasked with ‘organizing everything and anything.’”

While he was able to go into the job with no previous experience or education, over the summer coming into his senior year, Boehm gained certifications: many of them. It usually takes years to acquire the requirements to gain these titles; however, Boehm was able to do so in just three months. He was able to become Comp TIA A+, Network+ and Security+ certified, which will help him do more complicated work in the industry. Through those certifications, he was able to become an IT Operations Specialist and Secure Infrastructure Specialist. 

“It’s so inspiring to see him be so well composed with what he wants to do and that foresight has allowed him to tear into it bit by bit,”  IT specialist and coworker Fernando Gutierrez said. “He went right into those certifications, and you can see it’s his passion. You can see where that passion was when he came to it, and like any new job it’s just hard to get used to day-to-day life but he’s adaptable.”

Boehm hopes that this will help him get into the university of his dreams: Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. He decided to look for new programs that would help him in his future career. He plans on having a double major of global security and intelligence and cyber intelligence and security, GSIS studies for short.

Boehm continues to gain support from both parents. His father inspired him when he was younger, as he is in IT as well. With his father helping him along the way, and his mother by his side supporting him, Boehm continues to pursue his dream career.

“Michael will be successful at whatever he puts his mind to,” mother Anna Boehm said. “He works hard, goes above and beyond the requirements for the job and seeks out his own knowledge during his own time. It seems to make him very happy about what he does and I fully support it.”

IT is an expanding field, and it seems fewer people join it every year; however, this won’t stop Micheal Boehm from achieving his dream of being an IT specialist in the future.