Featured Internship: Jackson McKinney

TU Real Estate/Energy Studies Graduate Assistant and MBA Candidate Theresa Lam interviewed Jackson for this profile.

Can you tell us about yourself and your background, including your academic pursuits
and any relevant extracurricular activities or experiences that relate to real estate?
I am a senior Finance and Accounting student and have worked with the real estate club for the
majority of my time at the University of Tulsa. I have done an internship in the Real Estate
industry, specifically Real Estate Acquisition and Finance. I have lived in Tulsa since I was
seven years old, ever since my parents returned home from their schooling that took them
across the country.

Where did you intern? Tell us a bit about the company you interned for.
I interned for a company called NorthEnd Associates, which has a complicated ownership
structure, but has a stake in TruCore Investments and has an operating company of the same
NEA name under it as well.
So I, in effect, did work for both of these companies, TruCore Investments focused on equity
syndication (the pooling of investors) for the purchase of commercial real estate, specifically
industrial properties, typically Industrial Outdoor Storage (IOS) for hyper-specificity. They would
also enter into JV development deals (Multifamily and Industrial) usually with their syndicate
being limited partners with a general partner split for the companies and its partners.
And with NorthEnd Associates the company focused on Private Equity in a few industries that
relate to the partners expertise. I focused my research to build understandings of growing
industries that we could be an early partner in, through funding and operations expertise.
Discuss some main projects and tasks that you worked on.
During my internship I primarily worked on financial analysis for private equity deals and for real
estate private equity deals, this consisted of building out projected rental rates, acquisition
costs, and maintenance costs among other expenses for the real estate portion, and determine
addressable markets and margins in the PE work that focused generally on Real Estate
services and light industrial work.
I also worked for our CPA to build out reasonable segregations of cost for land and buildings for
accounting purposes and assisted our financial analyst in building his reports ranging from
detailed rental rates for financial estimates to proper photos for client brochures.

Who was someone you considered to be your mentor at the internship?
At my internship there were a grand total of seven full time employees and about two to three
interns throughout the year, so the org chart was relatively flat with my boss’s boss being the
managing partner and I looked to both them as well as our CPA and Financial Analyst as
mentors for general tasks as well as broader advice, their names in order being Kyle
Koscielniak, Josh Campbell, Noah Tedescucci, and Gabe West.

What specific skills or knowledge did you gain or develop during your internship?
I developed my financial analysis skills through working through many deals, at the beginning
dead deals and old projects, and then moved to working on live deals as my boss began to trust
my skills and knowledge. I also developed my professional writing skills and professional
interpersonal communication as this was my first office job, coming from retail and curatorial
work that translated but were certainly different.

What are some tips and advice you have for students who are looking for internships or
are currently in one?
As to looking for Internships, know what type of work or internship you are looking for and do
not sell yourself short when meeting new contacts that could lead to a job. Many people do a
fantastic job of understating their skills, which does them a disservice as the person you’re
talking to has no reason to not believe you. And to the “know thyself” portion of my advice within
real estate specifically and the finance world more broadly, there are so many niches to fill within
these industries that it is good to know what you think you would enjoy or be good at, but on the
flip-side keep an open mind to any type of work, especially early on, as you could find
something that you fall in love with or a natural at.
Then once you have the internship, do good work, I could tell many stories of other interns and
coworkers not putting in an adequate amount of effort or not being coachable and it shows,
managers and full time coworkers will notice and keep it in mind, as to be realistic, the entire
experience is an extended interview for the full-time position.