Success Story: Our Young Adults

Testing software fixes, documenting workflows, training system users and maintaining a SharePoint site are all in a day’s work for Tanika Miller, a WOS Business Analyst working at Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield in Newark, NJ. That it even sounds like an ordinary day is testimony to the success of WOS, in partnership with forward-thinking companies like Horizon, to develop tomorrow’s leaders while making a difference in the lives of inner-city young adults.

It was a different story in 2010, when Tanika had gone from the euphoria of enrolling at Delaware State University – one of the first in her extended family to attend college – to the sobering agony of needing to leave for lack of money. Too often, young people in these straits have faced daunting futures; fortunately, a friend of Tanika’s, a member of WOS’s Prudential cohort, told her about WOS.

From the moment Tanika started working at Horizon, she proved herself to be a go-getter. Inspired to "not take a single day for granted," she has seized every available opportunity to learn, grow, and gain experience in the corporate environment. In the process, she has gained the trust of the department director, who now works directly with Tanika instead of passing requests through a first-line supervisor, as well the trust of her peers, for whom Tanika has become a “go-to” person for issues as varied as Excel macro development and hardware troubleshooting.

While it’s her own hard work and dedication that have gotten Tanika to where she is today, she is quick to credit WOS for providing the opportunity to demonstrate her ability. There are also, she notes, many more inner-city young adults like her, ready and eager to join WOS, learn business and technical skills, and become valued contributors to WOS partner companies.

For Tanika herself, success at Horizon is just the start. "I have many goals that I want to reach," she reports, "so I always have to be driven to learn more. I never want to be comfortable to the point where I cannot progress." It’s a winning attitude that points to continued success for Tanika, and continued benefit for Horizon with Tanika onboard to help meet its technology challenges.