Earlier this year, the Washington Business Journal profiled greater Washington Black tech leaders and their paths to success. The article, featured on WBJ’s paid online subscription, The Business Journals, includes insights from area tech leaders, including MicroHealth’s Chief Executive Officer Frank Tucker and Chief Operating Officer Claude Hines.
In the article, Tucker highlights his journey from pharmacy technician to physician assistant, to acquisition manager for the Department of Defense (DOD) during his time in the Army.
“I asked for something that had the most amount of school,” he said, “which at the time was to become a pharmacy technician.”
It took trying multiple professions before landing on one that met both his health and information technology (IT) interests. It’s at his last role at the DOD where Tucker met Hines.
Hines too had a wandering path to get to where he is today. He owes his thanks to those who gave him a fair shot and pushed him to strive for more, especially during his first years in college and in the Army. Now in his leadership role at MicroHealth, he tries to pay it forward.
“Sometimes it’s just about helping give people a chance,” Hines said. “Even if they didn’t have the background in the area they were applying for, we created that space for them to learn and explore new things.
Today, MicroHealth offers internship and scholarship programs designed to do just that, he said, sometimes dramatically changing career paths. Today, more than 65% of the company’s employees identify as people of color, a testament to its diverse recruiting.
Read the full article (requires subscription): https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2023/03/24/black-tech-leaders-entrepreneurship.html