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Hey LiftPort world! My name is Griffin, I am one of two new interns operating with LiftPort Group and Michael for the summer. I originally met Michael in November of 2016 at a business planning competition for space commercialization (Michael was a judge) and then in the spring one of my entrepreneurship classes in which I had to job shadow an entrepreneur, and then make a documentary. For 5 weeks or so Michael and spent a ton of time together, I learned the history of LiftPort and the numerous ups and down that both Michael and LiftPort had along the way.
Initially I was given Michael’s contact info by a professor of mine to help me find an entrepreneur in the local area. I remember feeling a little upset when he agreed to work with me because I thought Michael was a guy that specialized in the import export business due to the ending of his email address (*@liftport.com). Wow, was I wrong. I can remember our first phone call: Michael: “Do you know what it is that I am doing?” Griffin: “I was under the impression that you were involved with imports and exports?” Michael: “Ha-ha no, I’m going build an elevator on the moon” Griffin: “OOOOOOHHH……. Ok then, that is considerably more interesting” Honestly, I was pretty hooked right then and there. What followed was a few preemptive meetings where we talked LiftPort details, and then we set to work on the documentary. It was a short documentary and it definitely had its problems (It was my first time editing a video ever) but it ended up winning a few awards at my college which felt pretty cool! In the weeks following film festival, Michael offered me a position as his intern and here we are! I couldn’t be more excited and I am stoked to see what the future holds. Great to meet all of you! -Griffin Pontius
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I just graduated from college, which is easily the biggest milestone of my life. 16 or so years of education, culminating in one ceremony, one weekend in May, where I received a piece of paper telling me that I had accomplished something big. My parent’s are super proud of me and they should be, I get that it is a huge accomplishment. However, everyone who has graduated from college knows that the very end of college and the very beginning of post graduate life, are all too shrouded with questions about what you plan to do now that college is over. I studied psychology, neuroscience and biology with a plan to pursue graduate education in neuroscience. I wasn’t ready though. Despite an excellent education, the neuroscience program at my school did not have any computer science as part of it’s curriculum, a field that is all but necessary for studying the brain. Luckily for me, there are countless resources online to learn various coding languages and thus, my summer plans were to embark on a goal to learn the coding language Python. Now, I just needed a job to support myself while developing the skill set I needed for graduate school and frankly, I didn’t exactly hunt for a job that hard while I was focusing on my classes. Quite fortunately for me, one of my close friends had gotten a summer internship with the one and only Michael Laine of the LiftPort Group. In passing, I had mentioned I was looking for a job to get involved in and Michael had also said that he was looking to bring another intern into his project. That’s when I was introduced to Michael Laine and the LiftPort Group.
I had no idea what I was getting myself into. My parents had no idea what I was getting into. I told them I had an interview with a local entrepreneur who my friend was interning for. I talked with Michael, learned about the project and just how risky, insane, and crazy it was and I couldn’t have been more intrigued. This was exactly what I was looking for in a job. This project will most likely fail, but if I am able to support myself, get business experience, and have the time to build my computer science skill set, then the project is not exactly risky for me. On the other hand, if the projects begin to gain traction, it could literally be the biggest accomplishment of humanity. I just graduated college and my first job is trying to build an elevator on the moon. Never would I have imagined I would be working on such a monumental project and for it to happen so quickly after graduation. Needless to say, my parents were also surprised about the nature of my new job, however, far less excited and far more skeptical. To be fair, they had paid for my education in neuroscience and for me to graduate and then come home and tell them, “I’m want to help build an elevator on the moon,” is particularly hard to prepare for. That being said, after considerable convincing, my parents have been extremely encouraging, very quick to make jokes, but very supportive. Now, I find myself as a recent college graduate, working to create the foundation for a company that is trying to build an elevator on the moon and fundamentally change the way humanity interacts with space and our larger solar system. That’s insane. I truly can’t believe that I was privileged enough to have this opportunity fall into my lap and now I have the opportunity to change the world, no, change more than just the world. -Jeremy Wain Hirschberg |
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March 2023
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