Demetria Washington was a health sciences major in college. Donnie Deister was a postal worker. Matthew Tanner was a Transportation Security Administration screener.
Each spent several years in those careers. Each, at one point in those vocations, believed there were few options for them beyond the narrow confines of their chosen fields. None, up until last year, had ever even considered a career in cybersecurity – let alone one at a major biotech company.
But now, all three are doing exactly that for Amgen.
Washington, Deister and Tanner are among a cohort of nine who completed a new apprenticeship program at Amgen last year. Through a non-profit working with the U.S. Department of Labor that creates alternative pathways for companies like Amgen to access talent to address a shortage of tech workers through apprenticeships, they became the first to be hired full-time at Amgen.
The nine who completed the program are currently working at the Tampa Bay, Florida site in the company’s Technology team. The program’s success in hiring nine of 10 people who completed it made it a natural decision to expand the apprenticeship program into other sites and divisions within Amgen as well.
Early next year, another cohort of apprentices will move into their formal roles at Amgen’s new site in Ohio, working in manufacturing. In addition, 12 more apprentices will begin the program in North Carolina in January.
With talent as a top strategic priority for Amgen, this program fits squarely into Amgen’s focus on developing a future-ready workforce with employees who represent a diversity of backgrounds and experiences.
Derek Miller, Senior Vice President of HR, said we are pleased with the progress of the apprenticeship program and success of the first cohort, which reinforces the company’s commitment to developing capabilities and upskilling to prepare for future workforce needs.
“Our hope is to learn from this first cohort how we can best shape the program to scale and evolve it to address future workforce skills gaps and advance Amgen’s goal of recruiting and retaining the best talent,” Miller said.
The first cohort of the apprenticeship program said the opportunity to work for Amgen in a field they’d never considered before as a career has been life-changing for them.
Anthony Soules, vice president of information security at Amgen, emphasized that the program's ability to develop qualified talent showcases its value. This is especially imperative as the demand for cybersecurity professionals continues to grow in response to a rapidly evolving digital landscape populated by sophisticated threats and the growing use of artificial intelligence.
“The program was a form of problem-solving,” Soules said. “It addressed a critical need and proved that formal education in the field is not the only path to success. The apprentices have excelled by demonstrating determination and a commitment to continuous learning, underscoring the importance of finding individuals motivated to grow in the field.”
Honoring My Father
Washington’s career path began as a teenager amid tragedy – the moment her father collapsed and died from a heart attack.
“My dad was the breadwinner for my family and my mom stayed at home with us,” Washington said. “With his death, it was like a flip of the whole world going upside down on her. She had 16 years as a stay-at-home mom, and it was hard for her to get a well-paying job to take care of our family. So, my brother and I had to pitch in more than we thought we’d ever have to do.”
She had never known her father to be particularly unhealthy. He worked hard as truck driver for furniture companies and moving pieces into homes. He was a positive force in her and her brother’s life. She knew he had high blood pressure, but at 15, she wasn’t fully aware of the risks that came with it being untreated.
Demetria Washington
When he died, she was determined to finish school and go to college to become a nurse – just like the woman who had tried to save her dad’s life outside of the home where he was delivering furniture almost 10 years ago.
“I always knew I wanted to help people,” Washington said. “Nursing seemed like a way to do that while also honoring my dad.”
But when she got to the University of South Florida to obtain a degree in nursing, the dream of helping people and honoring her dad began to fade amid the rigors of the full-time coursework and the demands of keeping a full-time job to help support her mother.
She couldn’t do both and, in the competitive nursing program, she began to slide. Washington switched majors to get a degree in health science instead. The problem, she said, was that once she graduated with that degree, it didn’t open any career doors. Instead, jobs in that field wanted advanced degrees – a pursuit for which she didn’t have the money.
“My whole life up until that point had been fixated on health,” she said. “I had tunnel vision about it. When it looked like that might not happen, I felt a little lost.”
It was around then a friend told her about the job he was doing in cybersecurity and asked if she might want to consider that as a career.
At first, she said it seemed a bit out of left field. But with mounting financial pressures, she needed to find a good job. She began looking into apprenticeship programs and saw one that took new people and, after taking a series of tests, helped place them with companies.
She studied. She took the tests. She did well enough to get sone interviews and one of the companies looking for cybersecurity was Amgen. Washington didn’t know much about the company, but when she saw it was a biotech firm that made medicines that helped people, she felt things begin to align.
Washington became a full-time associate IS security engineer in Tampa Bay earlier this year.
“To end up in a company that deals with health and helping others?” she said. “It was like I was on the right path again.”
Post Office Grind
Deister remembered working in the Post Office as a package sorter and attending to customers at the counter and feeling like it was a grind he couldn’t stay with much longer.
“You unload the truck and the day never changes,” Deister said. “Every day is exactly the same. It was great at first, but it was also grinding me down. Over time, I knew I had to make the jump to something else.”
He had joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 2007 as a 19-year-old who hailed from a family with a deep military tradition. His father had been in the U.S. Army, his uncle was in the U.S. Navy and his brother was in the U.S. National Guard. His friend suggested the Marines and it wasn’t long before he was on his first tour in Afghanistan.
Donnie Deister
He had done well in the Marines with technology and so he was attached to a platoon working communications – radios, data and troubleshooting Satcom and terrestrial equipment during the United States involvement in the War in Afghanistan. It was as diverse role and suited his communications training he’d received in the Marines while at Twentynine Palms in California.
“It made sense to go into the information technology and computers side of things because I’d been tinkering and using computers since I was five,” Deister said. “I was always interested in how computers worked and this felt like a good fit.”
Deister spent five years in the Marines before retiring and returning home to St. Louis, where he was looking for a new job and a new career path. He thought with his experience in the military, he might be able to land a job in information technology, but “getting a foot in the door was proving to be difficult.”
That’s when a friend told him to apply at the U.S. Postal Service. He did that for a few years, but he was also looking for other alternatives. He came across the nonprofit that was the inaugural Labor Department Apprenticeship Ambassador, which connected him to Amgen’s job opening in Technology.
Deister applied in 2023, took the test and scored well enough to get an interview. Amgen was one of the companies that wanted to learn more about him. After several Zoom calls, he was brought on board for the apprenticeship and his first week of orientation was memorable.
“I had to call off my first training online because my daughter was born,” he said. “The second day, I had my laptop open and behind me is the sign saying: “It’s a Girl.” I ended up doing my first few days from the hospital.”
He hasn’t looked back since being hired earlier this year after completing the apprenticeship program in August. He is currently an Associate Security Engineer in Tampa Bay.
Army to TSA to Amgen
Tanner joined the U.S. Army when he was 20 in 2008 to get an education and also see the world.
What he ended up seeing was two tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq.
“It’s difficult coming back from that,” Tanner said. “When you’re back in civilian life, there is that adrenaline rush you miss. You zone out and if you hear a pop, everything slows down and you’re in this fog looking around and that kind of reaction was common for me for the first two years after deployment.”
He spent a year working at Target, just trying to save money and then saw an opening with TSA in 2017.
Matthew Tanner
He was the lead transportation security officer at an airport in Florida, where he managed checkpoints, screened passengers and baggage, assessed potential threats and confiscated prohibited weapons.
But five years of that was enough for him and he began looking for other career options.
His brother got a referral through the same nonprofit as Deister, Tanner went through the same process Washington, and Deister did – ultimately being contacted by Amgen and eventually landing a spot in the apprenticeship program.
More than a year-and-a-half later, he said he felt like he found meaningful work at a meaningful place.
“Amgen really cares about producing a quality outcome for their patients and stakeholders,” he said. “I’m glad I can be a part of making it so. And Amgen has also changed my personal life at a time when I thought I was nearing my career ceiling. Amgen proved me wrong and it’s been the greatest pivot of my life.”
Washington said she thinks about her father in her new role at Amgen and believes it was serendipity that led her to Amgen.
“I think my dad would be super proud of me and that I didn’t let hardship defeat me,” she said. “I continued on the path I was supposed to go on and I am glad that the work I do can help support and protect patients and employees from security breaches so they can do what they can do to thrive.”
