Internship Highlight: Hunter Badamo
Meet Hunter Badamo, a rising fourth-year student at the Penn State Smeal College of Business, where he’s pursuing a double major in business analytics & information systems (BAIS) and accounting, along with a minor in history. This summer marks Hunter’s second internship with ALDI, where he’s building on past experience in his current role as a District Manager Intern. We caught up with him to learn more about his internship journey, what he’s learning, and how his time at Smeal has prepared him for success.
Tell us about your internship – what company are you working with, and what kind of projects or responsibilities are you taking on this summer?
I am working with ALDI, the fastest-growing grocery chain in the United States. This is my second summer with the company, and my experience with the company has been vast and continuous. I began in May 2024 as a Warehouse Operations Intern, learning the nuts and bolts of ALDI’s supply chain and getting
familiar with the company. Throughout my internship, I loved how I was given independence to work on projects I was passionate about. After collaborating with warehouse teams to develop a new store supply ordering system and some other projects, I dedicated my efforts toward data analytics and their application to warehouse processes. At the end of my internship, I was offered and accepted a remote position to continue my work with the company while I completed my junior year.
In this time, I built an Excel application with a dashboard for the truck loading business unit to monitor individual performance and progress. A series of algorithms pull data from ALDI’s trucking databases and compute metrics for the dashboard. Department leaders can view “profiles” of their team members and use data to diagnose specific pain points, thus fostering efficiency improvements across the entire loading function. I completed the application in April, and I am currently priming the project’s global launch in the background while I complete my new summer internship as a District Manager Intern.
In my current program, I have heavy exposure to people leadership and management, as well as a crystal clear view of ALDI’s front-end business in stores. With my assigned peer District Manager, Emma Moul (a Penn State supply chain graduate), I travel to six stores each week in the west Pittsburgh area to monitor
store performance, review scheduling and hiring, and overall diagnose store health. Excitingly, Emma is responsible for grand-opening a brand new ALDI store in Ellwood City this month, and I get to help her with the launch!
What drew you to business analytics & information systems as a major, and how has your understanding of the field evolved during your internship?
Simply put, I am passionate about data and how it revolutionizes problem-solving. In my internship, I’ve learned how data solutions can tackle real problems in corporations like ALDI.
What tools, technologies, or platforms are you using in your internship, and how are they helping you learn or solve problems?
In my District Manager program, I am primarily using ALDI’s proprietary software to view sales and efficiency trends, of course. For the application I’m launching, I primarily use Excel with heavy VBA scripts, but I am slowly transitioning to ALDI’s SQL server for that “big” warehouse data.
What’s the most unexpected or interesting thing you’ve learned about your company or industry?
Something pleasantly surprising to me was ALDI’s code of ethics – called “Moments that Matter” – and its implementation by leaders each day. It isn’t posturing for brand appeal by any means; employees really live out ethical principles while working hard to meet results.
If your internship experience had a theme song or motto, what would it be and why?
I’ll say “The Best of Both Worlds” – who doesn’t love Hannah Montana? I choose this because I’ve had exposure to both sides of ALDI’s business (warehouse and store operations), and it has been an adventure thus far, to say the least.
