Tech Apprenticeship

Joel Morgan, the city’s assistant director of workforce development, says the City of San Antonio wants to grow its workforce through apprenticeships. “I think that the city is in need of it, and I think it’s ready for it as well,” says Charles Woodin, CEO of geekdom. We made this video for City of San Antonio Workforce Development to interest tech employers in starting registered apprenticeships.

In tech, Joel explains, an apprenticeship can be customized to fit your organization, with quality employees trained “at a very predictable pace.” Diana Sáenz, Ph.D., executive director of NPower Texas, adds that it’s a way to reduce costs. To Quincy Harper, military recruiting lead at Accenture Federal Services, NPower’s students are “talent that’s hungry and want to learn.”

Some fear the paperwork and the time, but Joel says an apprenticeship puts “a foundation in place for your business that’s solid,” and apprentices tend to stay with the organizations that invest in them. Charles’s advice for any employer that’s contemplating it: “do it.” A known curriculum and an accountable partner in NPower, he says, take down the risk “as much as you can possibly imagine.”

Estrella Davila, a data analyst at Accenture Federal Services and an NPower alum, calls her move from NPower to Accenture “very smooth.” She says she didn’t have a college education, and she closes the video: “The City of San Antonio’s apprenticeship program and NPower changed my life.”