What’s the Buzz?! Veterans in Biotech

Nick Droste, Program Manager, Operational Excellence/Human Performance and Vice President Board of Directors, Reveille Grounds, and Chris Frew, CEO, BioBuzz Networks, sat down to buzz about veterans in biotech.

BioBuzz has been connecting the life science workforce since 2009. We’ve built an expansive community in the Mid-Atlantic with a national readership that spans from Massachusettes to Florida, and New York to California. For our next chapter, we’re building a proprietary talent logistics model to help employers source and hire life science talent. Learn more.

Layering on top of our community of tens of thousands of life science professionals and employers, BioBuzz is looking to disrupt the $3.8 US life sciences staffing market with the Talent Lab.

Using the latest technologies, BioBuzz wants to solve today’s greatest challenges in hiring and career development and:

• Search, match, and hire talent on demand (full-time, contract, project & gig, consulting, and fractional executives).
• Close the skills/opportunity gap and diversify the talent pool.
• Strike an equilibrium between hiring supply and demand.
• Build community intelligence in and around biohubs, building a stronger regional ecosystem.

Nick Droste, Program Manager, Operational Excellence/Human Performance and Vice President Board of Directors, Reveille Grounds, and Chris Frew, CEO, BioBuzz Networks, dig in more. Watch the video below to catch up on their conversation or keep scrolling for the full transcript.

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Chris Frew [00:00:00]:
Welcome to another LinkedIn Live with BioBuzz. Today we’ve got a really special guest, and we are talking about, What’s the Buzz? Veterans in Biotech with the one, the only, Nick Droste.

Nick Droste [00:00:14]:
How’s it going?

Chris Frew [00:00:15]:
I feel like he doesn’t need an introduction because Nick is everywhere and has like eight jobs. But one of those jobs is Program Manager or Human Performance at Emergent BioSolutions. Correct?

Nick Droste [00:00:28]:
Right.

Chris Frew [00:00:30]:
Another job is Chief Biscuiteer, Owner, Founder of Villainous Biscuits.

Nick Droste [00:00:37]:
Also correct.

Chris Frew [00:00:38]:
Yeah. Which were delicious if you came to Oktoberfest this year. Nick was there with a lot of his variety of biscuits. Let’s see, what else. Co-founder of Reveille Grounds.

Nick Droste [00:00:50]:
Reveille Grounds, yeah. It’s a new veteran and military family startup nonprofit for the Baltimore area, hopefully for Maryland to help build community connections and improve, make Baltimore a destination of choice for veterans and their families.

Chris Frew [00:01:10]:
That’s awesome. Well, we are all about community here. We love supporting that initiative, too. What else? Board of Buzz.

Nick Droste [00:01:21]:
That’s correct. Yes. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Bee-longing.

Chris Frew [00:01:26]:
And BEElonging. I love it. Well, we really appreciate all your support and all the work that you help to build the BioBuzz community and the biotech community at large and the vet community and the people who love biscuits community. That’s a pretty simple one. So we’re here today to talk about veterans in biotech, something that you know firsthand, obviously, which is why you’re here. But before we jump into that, obviously Veterans Day is coming up, right?

Nick Droste [00:01:59]:
It’s the only time of the year that businesses are allowed to talk about veterans.

Chris Frew [00:02:03]:
Yes. Well, we are going to change that, and we’re going to talk about all year long. But tell me, what do you have in store?

Nick Droste [00:02:10]:
So it’s actually the grand opening ribbon cutting ceremony for Reveille Grounds here in Baltimore. We’re doing an all day event, kind of come and go as you please, trying to be the community hub for veteran events in the area. So we’ve got upwards of 30 organizations that are coming to do a resource showcase marketplace, a couple of bands and improv groups and shakespearean actors. Kind of a whole day talent showcase, resource fair, and then ribbon cutting ceremony with a couple of area vips to give us some commencement speeches.

Chris Frew [00:02:55]:
That was a loaded question. I didn’t know you had all that going on. Yeah. So two questions, father. Where’s the location?

Nick Droste [00:03:01]:
It is right down the street from MT Stadium, behind Second Chance in south Baltimore.

Chris Frew [00:03:07]:
And how do people register?

Nick Droste [00:03:09]:
Reveillegrounds.com. There’s a tab that says Veterans Day, and you can sign up there to attend. And also if you would like a table as part of our resource fair.

Chris Frew [00:03:19]:
Awesome. Well, there’s still tables to sign up. It’s going to be an awesome event this weekend. And congratulations on the official.

Nick Droste [00:03:26]:
Thank you. Very excited.

Chris Frew [00:03:27]:
Yeah. Let’s talk again about biotech. You’re a vet last time you checked. All right. And you made your way into the biotech industry. Tell us your story. Like, how did that come about?

Nick Droste [00:03:43]:
It’s a very good question. So prior to 2019, I couldn’t have told you what biotech was. Had no idea. Never heard of it. But when I retired from the Army (Go Army, Beat Navy!) I didn’t want to keep doing the same thing I had been doing. I wanted to change.

Nick Droste [00:04:05]:
I’d been doing language analysis and intelligence operations for 20 years and wanted to change. But my kids loved the area, and we all fell in love with Baltimore, Maryland. All of everything that entails, except for Old Bay. I’m not sure; juries still out on that. But wound up kind of just exploring options. Went to a veteran job fair here at MT Stadium and didn’t really have any concrete goals. Was just kind of seeing what the options were, and I ended up hitting it off with an Air Force veteran who was standing behind the table for Emergent, who happens to be the producer of the anthrax and smallpox vaccines that I received prior to deploying to wonderful places on the earth.

Nick Droste [00:05:02]:
So, yeah, that connection, being on the receiving end of those vaccines and appreciating, not dying, kind of helped that plus the connection with a fellow veteran in the company. He became my hiring manager and then boss and mentor and still very good friends with him. Just was chatting with him today.

Chris Frew [00:05:25]:
Goes back to how important community and relationships are in the job search, but that’s not scalable all the time. Can you think about maybe what was a factor that enabled you, other than your charming personality? Why was that a fit? Why was that the right job for you?

Nick Droste [00:05:48]:
So I think biotech as a whole, it absolutely is scalable. That sort of would happen to me because of the mission that biotech has. That’s the thing that I think is lacking for most veterans when they leave the service. That mission, wanting to make a difference, wanting to improve lives around the world, you can’t necessarily do that in many other industries, but the biotech industry, life sciences, you can have even more impacts than you had in the military. So that mission resonates with the veteran population. If you can figure out a way to apply it correctly.

Chris Frew [00:06:33]:
Yeah, that’s interesting. I couldn’t agree more. That’s one of the reasons why I’m in this industry, is it’s the mission-oriented, the impact you can have. You said it is absolutely scalable. What are some of the gaps that exist right now with vet seeking careers in the industry? What are some of the things we have to address in order to help it scale?

Nick Droste [00:06:59]:
I think the number one gap for veterans seeking careers with the industry is awareness. It’s not something that is the easy translation of, like, you did this in the military, so you can do this with this company. Those are easy jumps, but they don’t really address things that in the biotech world. The veterans have the skills and they have talents and the soft skills, if you will, of leadership and operating in a regulated environment and writing sops and delivering training, taking care of people. All of those things are ingrained in us and can be leveraged if we know how to translate them. So that’s the awareness that the industry exists and then the ability to take your skills and what you did in the military and translate it into what hiring managers and recruiters are looking for.

Chris Frew [00:08:04]:
Yeah. You said, what was your role in the military?

Nick Droste [00:08:09]:
Language analyst.

Chris Frew [00:08:10]:
So it’s just basically learning how to speak a different language. So I can see why you’re so good at this. It’s an awareness thing and it’s a translational thing. It’s understanding how to speak the right language.

Nick Droste [00:08:24]:
Yeah. And then just one other issue with veterans is the imposter syndrome, because we don’t know the industry, we don’t know what we would really qualify for. So we need touch points within the industry to be able to connect and understand what that is.

Chris Frew [00:08:44]:
Yeah, I think that speaks to confidence. Right. So confidence is so important in any transition of your job. And we’ve talked about this often, too, with underrepresented communities or communities outside of the biotech industry. Anybody coming in, because there is this kind of error that, like, oh, I’m not a PhD or I’m not a scientist, but there are so many jobs. Like you said, it’s more of that understanding of how to work in the environment than it is like those specific skills.

Nick Droste [00:09:13]:
Yeah. It’s being able to work on complex issues, to build teams, to leverage all of that to impact the mission, and we have that. It’s part of being in the military every day. You’re responding to ambiguity and learning how to accomplish a mission without specific resources with different constraints. So it absolutely translates over well, let’s.

Chris Frew [00:09:48]:
Translate this into the other side of the equation, which is with employers. What’s the gap with employers? Why are more employers not, is there also lack of awareness or. Absolutely lack of language barrier there as well? What have you learned about that?

Nick Droste [00:10:04]:
So, yeah, being on the other end of that has been illuminating as well. The number one thing is this is the way we’ve always done things. Issue of we need people who have 15 years of experience in biotech for entry level positions or to be leaders or to do these things that are not really technical positions, but they have to have experience specifically in biotech or they’re a project that I don’t have time for. I say, miss me with that because.

Chris Frew [00:10:37]:
And you don’t think that’s the case?

Nick Droste [00:10:39]:
Absolutely not. No.

Chris Frew [00:10:41]:
I’ve been a recruiter for 20 years and I can tell you that that is still a problem and we struggle with that all the time. Need project manager. Well, you need a PhD and you don’t need a PhD to be a project manager.

Nick Droste [00:10:54]:
Absolutely. Yeah. I just was talking to somebody yesterday who found his way through a Department of Defense Skillbridge internship with Kite and had that requirement was on the job application, and he was able to go there and demonstrate that those six years required biotech experience. Were not that required.

Chris Frew [00:11:18]:
Yeah, it’s not hard to learn some technology concepts and learn process concepts and things like that.

Nick Droste [00:11:27]:
What is hard to learn is taking care of people, servant leadership, execution of mission, and operating in high stress environments with. In ambiguity.

Chris Frew [00:11:39]:
Yeah. So it’s like hard skills versus competencies and aptitude. Some of those aptitude competencies and stuff that’s hard to teach. You can teach some other hard skills.

Nick Droste [00:11:50]:
Absolutely. Yeah.

Chris Frew [00:11:55]:
There’s a little bit of a barrier. So it sounds like the industry needs to change a little bit in some of the practices that maybe could be considered antiquated. Maybe. So I don’t mind saying that. What else? You mentioned Kite, who’s one of our featured employers. We’ve worked with Kite for several years to help attract talent for their mission. But they’re a big company. Right.

Chris Frew [00:12:20]:
And they’ve got a lot of recruiters and they’ve got programs and they’ve got assistance. Emergent, another large company in the defense and human saving lives space. So I can see a one to one match there as well. But what’s missing, or what are some of the things that other smaller companies or other companies, how do they get into being able to hire more?

Nick Droste [00:12:48]:
I mean, the first part is, yes, Kite and Emergent are larger employees, but they still have Kite’s kind of best in the area, and we’re trying to match their energy. But the thing that sets them apart and what I think sets Emergent apart at the moment is the leveraging of Department of Defense Skillbridge, which is a 90 to 120 day internship program for the last bit of service members service. And actually also now for military spouses. They can come to your company, be paid by the Department of Defense or the Department of Commerce, and learn and show that value that they bring to the table without any cost of the company. So both of us have developed internal programs specifically for internships and are in the process of bringing people on in a variety of different roles, from program management to manufacturing management, sales, maintenance, all sorts of different operations.

Chris Frew [00:14:00]:
So the skills bridge, it’s an internship, but do you see a lot of people convert after that?

Nick Droste [00:14:08]:
Yeah, the goal for the program is 80% conversion into job acceptance. But I think most companies that are participants have a much higher rate, and it’s not just something that large companies can do. We developed ours with a core of about five people working, developing the program and building into value that we know that veterans could use, like building into lean six Sigma training program on top into our program to kind of help add more value to them regardless of where they end up.

Chris Frew [00:14:45]:
That’s great. Well, we’ll share some more information on the skills page program out to our community. So, obviously, you’re very passionate about this. You’re seeing a lot of success and fulfilling career having transitioned that and so much so that, again, you’re advocating for this on a regular basis. You also do work with Maryland Tech Council’s Biohub. What’s your role there?

Nick Droste [00:15:12]:
Yeah, liaison advisor. So they actually have a program with Nybert, which is Ireland based biotech training program. They have a veterans in biotech kind of curriculum that a group of us from the industry in the area collaborated with to kind of show what skills we need for that veterans could be trained on and be able to kind of hit the ground running, get through that blockade of the experience piece with actual tangible, hard skills that they’ve gotten from this curriculum. So we’re doing that. We’re working with them on their resumes and interviews and polishing up their LinkedIn profile. So the first cohort just graduated last week.

Chris Frew [00:16:05]:
That’s awesome. Congratulations.

Nick Droste [00:16:07]:
Yeah, it was awesome for them. They were at the Maryland the Biotech Innovation conference, wandering around, connecting with all the companies and showing the things that they learned, and it was just awesome to watch them show what they learned.

Chris Frew [00:16:26]:
That’s great. The BioHub does training programs. The training you mentioned is an industry renowned training program, so one of it is applied to vets. How long is the training that they go through?

Nick Droste [00:16:41]:
This one was about two months, I think. Two months.

Chris Frew [00:16:43]:
Awesome. Does that complement the Skills Bridge Program?

Nick Droste [00:16:48]:
Well, yeah, it’s absolutely. So Skillbridge is more of, like, doing the work, going in and performing that. The Biohub could be an augment to that. People could do Skillbridge with the company while also doing virtual and in person training with Nybert and then being even more.

Chris Frew [00:17:10]:
I love it. So, all right, we’re starting to put together the package here, and there’s a lot of BioBuzz. We are building out our talent lab, and so we’re not providing training. So we’re going to have to send people to the Biohub for training. We want to be the roads and the pipes and stuff to help get people to the company. So we want to provide that first mile and last mile delivery. So we’ve been talking a lot about what we’re trying to accomplish is this concept that we’re floating around called talent logistics. How do we get the right people connected to the right companies at the right time and also not just focus on full time work, but consulting and part-time work and gigs.

Chris Frew [00:17:55]:
So as you look at how people are transitioning, military spouses, military, do you see a role for part-time contract, ways that they can kind of gain experience or gain show they have translational skills?

Nick Droste [00:18:10]:
Yeah, absolutely. I think especially for the military spouses who maybe may need to be remote, may need to have flexible hours, but they also have a series of skills that you wouldn’t believe, like the range of candidates leaving the military. It’s as diverse as the population. I mean, we’ll have anyone from two years of service and sort of entry-level positions all the way up to people who have commanded hundreds if not thousands of people and people with. I saw a candidate a couple of months ago who had a phd in immunology, not what people or recruiters or hiring managers think would be in the candidate pool when you talk about veterans. But really, it’s as open and diverse as our population, which has diversity built into it.

Chris Frew [00:19:10]:
Yeah, that’s great. I think one of the things we’re looking at from a platform perspective is also, and I think you can probably speak to this too often in biotech, in every industry, we say we’re hiring for this, so we need someone that’s done that and resumes, for instance, are the worst enemy for that because a recruiter, I joke all the time, and the 24 year old lacrosse player from Salisbury who doesn’t know HPLC versus PB and J. Right. But that resume, again, talks about what you have done, not what you can do. And again, your transition is proof of that. And you and I have talked about that before. Too often a lot of people leaving the military, like, I don’t want to do this anymore, but I’ve gotten all these skills. So that’s something we’re trying to address is like, how do we focus on skills capabilities to do matching, not just what you’ve done in the past.

Nick Droste [00:20:12]:
And I think that’s one of the key things that’s often overlooked for the veteran population is how we are malleable or scalable to careers once we know what we want to be when we grow up. We have the GI Bill, we have vocational rehabilitation. These are all programs that you can go to school for. If you resonate with the mission, you can go up to. You can get a PhD or multiple masters with those programs. We have programs like onward to opportunity that gives us PMP or lean six Sigma training, all sorts of different certifications to kind of break that barrier. If we’re just given that shot to show up and show out, then we can even more augments once we have that glimpse at the pipeline and at.

Chris Frew [00:21:12]:
A lower cost to the employer because of all these extra elements. And I would say just again, wearing my 20 years of recruiting experience and knowing the market, I mean, we’re in a really dynamic market right now. There’s fluctuation, a lot of changes. Retention is the new recruiting is one of the buzz sayings that you hear out there. Right. But if you’re going to take a risk on somebody right now, people in the military, people join the military, they’re making a commitment. So they’re also people who predisposition to keep commitments. So if you’re going to take a risk on somebody that maybe doesn’t have the skills but, you know, can adapt and build in, I mean, it seems to me like that’s a population you want to be taking a risk on.

Chris Frew [00:21:59]:
You are looking at.

Nick Droste [00:22:00]:
Yeah. If you have a mission that resonates with veterans and you give them a shot, you will have the retention that you’re looking for. It will take someone giving them heaven and earth to leave you because it’s more than the money for us, it’s about the sense of purpose and being able to be part of something larger than ourselves.

Chris Frew [00:22:26]:
Yeah, no, I think that’s amazing. As employers think about how they start addressing this population. You mentioned earlier, awareness is one of the things they can do. It sounds to me like showing your mission, talking about your mission, sometimes more so than the technical experience that you need, is important. What are some of the other things that employers need to think about and how they start communicating to get more eyeballs from the veteran community?

Nick Droste [00:22:59]:
So a common thing. I keep hearing that everyone’s having issues with finding candidates, but everyone wants to be called military-friendly or veteran-friendly employers. The problem is that they stop there and it’s just kind of generic support. Like, yeah, we want to hire veterans. There’s all these things that you need to do to get that communication to them, to build a program that supports them, to build programs for your existing veterans that support them so that they become spokespeople and reach out and connect with other veterans to kind of bring you in. So if you don’t have a dedicated veteran recruiter, doesn’t have to be a veteran, but someone who is dedicated to doing that and building a program like that specifically for veterans, then you’re doing that generic support. You’re not putting in the work to really accomplish the thing that you say that you’re trying to do. So that’s a key thing that I see is building that into your talent acquisition team, not just as an additional duty like, oh, you can handle these veterans.

Chris Frew [00:24:22]:
And I’ll tell you, at the end of the day, hiring takes work. These days, gone are the day where you just post a job and you’re good. Every organization has to put hiring, and I think Covid actually moved hr more into the boardroom than ever before and created a space for talent acquisition and the importance of it, which I’ve been very happy to see that adoption. But at the end of the day, it takes work. My advice from a talent specialist that’s been in this industry for a while is I tell everyone, find out who your top populations are that work at your company and succeed at your company. And I would hope that after today, especially people, put veterans in that category and then put 80% of your time into those categories and realize it’s going to take work. So whatever your diversity inclusion approach is, again, that’s another one. Sometimes people just check the box.

Chris Frew [00:25:19]:
It’s going to take work. So if you’re going to say, this is something I want to do, you have to right size your workload to understand. People say, oh, yeah, we really want to care about Canada, experience with us, and then everyone I talk to never gets an email even, or a response from a recruiter. If you’re going to say something, make that a priority. And then it’ll take some time to.

Nick Droste [00:25:40]:
Go, but it will pay off dividends and it’ll bounce. Like, if you’re just doing the generic support, then you’re going to be going about it wrong. You’re going to go to job fairs with a packet full of just entry level positions for people who have been leading. For leading teams. Yeah, leading teams and battalions and squadrons and going into. Leading teams into combat. And you’re offering them technicians. They’re going to see that and be like, okay, I’m going to keep it moving.

Nick Droste [00:26:13]:
Yeah.

Chris Frew [00:26:13]:
So again, just understanding the population goes back to doing the work ahead of time. Understand, listen to Nick. Find the other nicks that are around something your wife will never say.

Nick Droste [00:26:26]:
Oh, yeah, definitely.

Chris Frew [00:26:27]:
But find the nicks around you and ask them and ask questions and figure out what it is you need to do. And it sounds like a couple of things. One, understand that you’re going to have to have a mind shift around translational skills, but you’re hiring a person that has shown they can show up and deliver in multiple environments and regulated environments. So again, hopefully that’s a call to action for some people. What else can people do to be part of the solution, whether it’s companies, whether it’s employees? Me.

Nick Droste [00:27:05]:
Something we talked about earlier was the imposter syndrome for the veterans. It’s kind of one of the contributors to that generic idea is like, I’m not a veteran, so I’m here for you if you need anything. But there’s mentorship programs. American corporate partners is one that I’m particularly fond of. Shout out to Curtis, my mentee, who just landed a great role. And yeah, there’s tons of different opportunities to actually use your experience to help them translate their skills into a number of different industries or use your connections to pair them up. That’s how I got connected to BioBuzz, was just through being active on LinkedIn, connecting with my man Adam. And then the rest was just kind of, we have similar missions that resonate, building communities and empowering each other to make a difference.

Nick Droste [00:28:04]:
So follow those things that resonate with you.

Chris Frew [00:28:08]:
Yeah, that’s good advice. And I’ll say, just from my perspective, I know a lot of the organizations in the area. We recruit for a lot of the companies. So there’s a couple of other companies and some of them are sponsors. I mean, kite, we’ve mentioned several times today they walk the walk, right? And a couple others, like PQE Group is another one. I’ve seen some good that they’re putting their money where their mouth is. I’m trying to find more analogies. Johnson Johnson, another large company, another company in Philadelphia is Protex.

Chris Frew [00:28:46]:
And they’ve got a lot of positions. They’re hiring right now. They do design and construction engineering. But I was up there at a golf tournament they did for mean again, Protex. And Chris DePalo, who runs that organization, is a great guy, really does support. And I met several people on his team who were just like, it was great. And some of them were reservists. And that’s the other thing, the reservist mindset.

Chris Frew [00:29:17]:
It wasn’t just like, oh, yeah, you can take the time off. It was totally understood and embraced. So Protecs is another one, NextCure right down the road. And American Gene Technologies, I think they’re going to see a lot of hiring next year. So vets could definitely take a look at them. Obviously Emergent here. Becton Dickinson (BD), right up the road in Baltimore is another one. So there’s a lot around.

Chris Frew [00:29:45]:
I mean, GSK is another one. They have an apprenticeship program. So another type of skills, bridge. So there’s, from an awareness standpoint, maybe that’s something we got to do is really do some shout outs to companies.

Nick Droste [00:29:56]:
Yeah, it definitely is. Celebrating those that are put in the.

Chris Frew [00:30:00]:
Work and shaming the ones.

Nick Droste [00:30:04]:
No, I think, yeah, it’s definitely not shaming, but showing the way. Showing the way. Yeah, exactly. Rising tide and lifts all boats is the saying of the day.

Chris Frew [00:30:16]:
Yes, indeed. Well, this has been a really good conversation. I’ve learned a lot and I enjoy. This is the type of stuff that I do think we need to do. Hopefully there are some employers listening today that are taking some nods and taking some stuff back, and we’ll be blowing you up to give you your 7th job. He doesn’t say no. So thank you for being part of what’s the buzz around and veterans in biotech. So thank you all for being part of the BioBuzz community and all your support over the years.

Chris Frew [00:30:49]:
Again, we are excited for all that’s happening in our industry and all that the next year has in store for us. I know we’re wrapping up 2023. We’ve got a lot of stuff going on. You’ve seen our crowdfunding and the new Talent Lab we’re building. We’re continuing to grow our ambassador program. So please reach out to us, engage with us. We want more people that want to build up this biotech industry in this community. So again, thank you for tuning in, and we’ll talk soon.

Chris Frew [00:31:18]:
Bye.