Internship Spotlight: Dawson Klein

Dawson Klein, pursuing a Master of Business Administration from Rice University, fuses his love

for the outdoors, as well as a passion for business and finance through an internship with CEP,

which began in June.

“My internship with CEP has been the perfect combination of tangible impacts, being able to

spend time outdoors and abstract finance problems,” Klein said.

Klein said his experience with CEP has been an intensive learning experience, with much time

dedicated to learning about the mitigation industry, as well as key terminology. After becoming

secure in this knowledge, Klein was responsible for conducting market research and

investigating historical trends in relevant markets.

“I then began developing financial models to forecast the future performance of different

projects,” Klein said. “Currently, I am still working on developing financial models and am also

looking into real estate entitlement.”

Since his time with CEP, Klein has developed a searchable Excel database focused on regional

wetland and stream credit information. Additionally, he developed a model for a portfolio of

eight CEP mitigation banks.

“This project was great because it really pushed the limits of my financial modeling experience

and required me to learn new techniques in order to accurately synthesize the data,” Klein said.

Klein added that his time at CEP has allowed him to explore all aspects of the business — from

property visits, to investor and partner meetings, to independent projects.

“My technical skills, knowledge of the industry and relationships with the team have developed

far more than I would have expected given that I have only been interning for less

than four months,” Klein said. “As corny as it sounds, my favorite aspect of interning at CEP is

the people — Each person has impressed me in their intelligence, charisma, work

ethic and drive.”