In advance of the upcoming Baltimore Together Summit, BioBuzz sat down with featured panelist Dr. Brandy Carter to learn more about her story and her road to BTI.

Dr. Carter’s journey to BTI started when she moved to Anne Arundel County 14 years ago, where she worked as a contractor for DC Public Schools. However, Dr. Carter felt like she could be giving more to the community explaining, “Race education is extremely important to me. It’s been the thing that has helped catalyze my entire life so I wanted to give back.”

She initially applied to do some volunteer work at South Baltimore Learning Center (SBLC) and was eventually hired as a GED teacher at Clay Pots.

In 2018, the Weinberg Foundation gave a large donation to promote collaboration between nonprofits in Baltimore. This created a connection between SBLC and BTI, where if applicants to BTI’s training program didn’t meet the entry-level scores needed, they could go to SBLC and Dr. Carter would help upskill the participants before they went back to BTI.

This collaboration got Dr. Carter thinking about her current role as a GED teacher at SBLC and if she could be doing more to help struggling people in Baltimore. “Unfortunately, in most careers, a high school diploma doesn’t take you far,” says Dr. Carter. She wanted to help change that and decided to take a job at BTI where she could help train under- and unemployed people to become skilled lab technicians.

Dr. Carter will be a featured speaker for this panel discussion, “Serving the Needs of an Untapped Workforce” on Nov. 2, about workforce development in Baltimore. Read the rest of the interview here.

Register here for BioBuzz‘s “Baltimore Together Summit”, Oct. 30 – Nov. 3, 2023.