Congratulations, Lenny!

By Rail Passengers Staff

Meet Lenny...although in some ways, you already have. You see, since mid-year last year when Lenny started his internship with us, a lot of what you’ve read and seen and shared and reacted to on our social-media channels came from Lenny.

As a communications intern with us, his job was to work closely with our professional staff – Ned Butler, once a former fabulous intern with us as well who “graduated” to lead our comms function for a couple of years; Joe Aiello, our grassroots field Director, our Policy team led by VP for Government Affairs Sean Jeans-Gail, and our President & CEO, Jim Mathews – to get their words, their pictures, and their ideas out into the world.

Lenny’s touch was pretty obvious: snappy graphics just crying out to be shared, multiple posts on important topics, and being Jonny-on-the-spot (Lenny-on-the-spot?) when Sean or Jim wrote or spoke publicly or in the press on things like late trains, Amtrak funding, customer-service issues, or Amtrak transparency.

But it was also obvious in ways all of you probably don’t see or realize. Our data show that you opened and read our digital newsletters more. They also show that you shared our content on your own pages – BlueSky, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and all the rest – about a third again more than you did a year ago. Our web traffic went up, too. For a nonprofit devoted to spreading the word about passenger rail, more shared content and more traffic means “mission accomplished”!

Our tiny-but-mighty staff has been unusually fortunate over the years to have brought on a whole series of rock-star interns. And it occurred to us that apart from public thanks it would be good to recognize our interns more formally. Today I’ll share that we decided to shine a spotlight on Lenny as our first Intern of the Year for 2024!

Alas, our Lenny will graduate the University of Dayton this year and has already accepted an offer at a great organization, starting this week to juggle what’s left of his classes and his new job. Lenny says he’ll still volunteer for us, and for All Aboard Ohio, and that’s great news for our movement. But obviously it will be at a lighter pace and more ad hoc.

Meanwhile, please keep on reading, sharing, and commenting on our work, because it really, truly makes a difference as we activate our grassroots volunteers across America wherever they work, play, study, or live. We need everyone aboard, especially now.

Thanks Lenny, congratulations, and best of luck on your next adventure!