The Gold Standard: Why Colleges & Employers Should Embrace Registered Apprenticeships

How do you build a sustainable talent pipeline for high-demand roles and creatively solve your workforce shortage challenge? In 2019, Howard Community College (HCC) and AT&T forged a strategic partnership to solve a critical workforce bottleneck: recruiting, retaining, and clearing skilled cybersecurity talent for massive federal infrastructure contracts. The result was the AT&T Catapult Apprenticeship Program—a nationally recognized Registered Apprenticeship model featured at the White House Cybersecurity Sprint event.

This innovative program bridges the gap between traditional college pathways and corporate needs, giving students a direct line to top-secret security clearances and hands-on experience. The numbers speak for themselves: over 450 applicants, over 100 hires, and close to 40 clearances cleared to date. In this co-presented session, leaders from both HCC and AT&T will provide an in-depth view of this registered apprenticeship model. Attendees will get a holistic perspective on how the partnership was established, how it evolved, and how it successfully navigates complex federal requirements.

Whether you are a university looking to launch non-traditional work-based learning models or an employer aiming to revolutionize your early talent strategy, you will walk away with the exact blueprints needed to replicate this success in your own region 

Following this program, you will be able to:

• Identify the core elements needed to align higher education curricula with rigorous, specialized industry requirements.
• Navigate the operational steps to launch Registered Apprenticeship programs in non-traditional, highly regulated corporate fields (such as cybersecurity and defense).
• Implement proven recruitment and support strategies that successfully increase representation for underrepresented students.
• Access resources, framework models, and institutional contacts to begin exploring similar employer-led pathways