Authored by: Rob Penner/Stifel
Featured Picture: Alice Merryweather, Chris Nielsen (Sr. VP/Investments at Stifel) and Jay Poulter
For many elite ski racers, summer season is a season of dryland coaching, chasing snow within the Southern Hemisphere, and maybe a number of uncommon moments of downtime. However for Alice Merryweather and Jay Poulter, this summer season supplied one thing fully totally different: a glimpse into life past the ski hill via Stifel’s summer season internship program in Park Metropolis, Utah.
Stifel, a associate of the Stifel U.S. Alpine Ski Staff since 2022, has been creating alternatives for athletes to realize skilled expertise off the snow—expertise that may be arduous to return by when your life revolves round racing gates at 50 mph. This summer season, Merryweather, a former U.S. Ski Staff member who retired in 2024, and Poulter, a present rising expertise on the workforce and finance main on the College of Utah, spent a number of weeks immersed on the planet of wealth administration and finance.
For Merryweather, who majored in authorities at Dartmouth earlier than graduating in Might 2024, the timing was good. “I had simply retired final spring and nonetheless had some college left to complete,” she mentioned. “I used to be determining what I needed to do with my life, and this felt like an enormous alternative to see one thing completely new and totally different.”
Poulter, in the meantime, is already desirous about learn how to stability his ski profession with a future in finance. “I’m majoring in finance, and this internship gave me a complete view of the sector,” he mentioned throughout his last days within the Stifel places of work. “It was my first probability to work in an workplace and see how issues truly run behind the scenes.”
The pair spent most of their time in Stifel’s Park Metropolis department, studying the ins and outs of wealth administration whereas assembly colleagues from throughout the agency. Following his “day job,” Poulter would then hit the USANA Heart for Excellence for every day dryland coaching periods. Within the penultimate week of their internship, the pair traveled to Stifel’s St. Louis headquarters to attach with different interns, Stifel staff and expertise the corporate on a bigger scale. In addition they had the particular alternative to fulfill with Stifel CEO Ron Kruszewski.
“The good half for me was attending to be a part of the Stifel tradition,” Merryweather mentioned. “Whether or not on Zoom or in particular person, everybody was welcoming, and it actually felt like a workforce setting.”
Poulter agreed: “Visiting the headquarters was the spotlight of my summer season. We bought the royal remedy and noticed the corporate from the within out. Assembly totally different groups and seeing how everybody works collectively was eye-opening.”
Past finance abilities, the internship gave each athletes a broader perspective on life after snowboarding. For Merryweather, having one thing to concentrate on exterior of racing has lengthy been an vital psychological outlet.
“It’s wholesome to produce other targets,” she mentioned. “Even simply understanding what’s on the market may give you peace of thoughts as an athlete.”
Poulter sees the expertise as a primary step towards a dual-track future: proceed snowboarding professionally, then pivot to finance when the time comes. “Being in class already retains me conscious that there’s extra on the market than simply ski racing,” he mentioned.
Stifel’s internship program might not contain chairlifts or end traces, however for athletes accustomed to the depth of competitors, it presents one thing simply as precious: perspective. And in the long term, that is likely to be a very powerful victory of all.
