Sitting alongside the head of the Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority, the leader of PowerCorps PHL, and presenting to a room full of national leaders in the infrastructure industry, Hopeworks alumnus Marcel Njighe-Tezeh wowed the crowd at the national TIS Workforce symposium this month in Washington DC.
The Transformative Issues Symposium on Workforce brought together water sector professionals from across North America to discuss the most important and challenging issues associated with workforce. This event featured presentations given by thought leaders and engaged attendees in facilitated discussions to help foster the exchange of ideas on this evolving topic of concern.
Marcel was one of those thought leaders!
Sharing his story of emigrating by himself from Cameroon at the age of 17, Marcel discussed how he came to Hopeworks, how he flourished in the GIS program there, and how he was able to leverage his experience at Hopeworks into a full time job at American Water. As Marcel shared, “many of the people I know are still working in warehouses. I have a great job at American Water.”
To truly build a diverse and vibrant water sector, more companies must recruit and retain great, nontraditional candidates like Marcel!