Josh comes to this Symposium with a job in hand

At Mesa Community College we are excited and so proud of the success of our students.  Joshua Darland came into the program as a pure vocational student. He was raising funds for public radio and booking flights as a travel agent, and he wanted to switch careers. He wanted to join the field of biotechnology.  In 2008 we had an informational interview.  As a litmus of his interest I invited him to Biotech Symposium, our annual event each spring.   Joshua showed up early.

For 3 years he took classes in the earty mornings and evenings, while working in between.  Upon the completion of his studies he took on 2 or 3 internships, and he never gave up. 

At Biotech Symposium 2012 he arrived with his first full-time paid position in the biotech industry - employment in the core sequencing lab at Translational Genomics (Tgen, Phoenix, AZ). Here he is pictured (on the right) with one of his biotechnology instructors Brandon Guida at Symposium 2012.