Most Important Skills for an Assistant Program Manager at American Biotech Co.
Angel, an Assistant Program Manager at American Biotech Co., finds fulfillment in their current role through "serving a cause bigger than self," a value stemming from prior service roles within various government departments. This is realized by the company's patient-centric approach, regularly reinforced by patient testimonials, allowing Angel to contribute to the creation and delivery of life-saving medicines, "making sure that medicines are available and safely produced."
Project Management, Biotechnology, Patient Care, Leadership, Serving a Higher Cause
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Angel Torres
Assistant Program Manager
American Biotech Co.
University of California, Davis
University of Oklahoma, Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership (2022); University of California, Los Angeles, Masters in Business Administration (2025)
Political Science, American Studies
Biotechnology & Pharmaceutical
Operations and Project Management
Disabled, Scholarship Recipient, Veteran
Video Highlights
1. Helping patients through medicine development and delivery is a core motivation. The company's patient-centric vision and the practice of inviting recovered patients to share their testimonies keep the team focused on the bigger picture.
2. The work combines idealism and service, similar to the interviewee's prior military experience. The focus is on contributing to a larger cause, whether directly helping patients or supporting processes that contribute to patient care.
3. The role involves project and process delivery in biotech manufacturing, contributing to the availability and safe production of medicines. This offers a non-scientific avenue for contributing to the field.
Transcript
What do you enjoy most about being in your current role?
What I enjoy most about my current role is that I continue to have a feeling of serving a cause bigger than myself. I joined the military because I wanted to serve my country and support the constitution, all those good idealistic parts that everybody across the government ideally has.
I've worked with people in the Department of Commerce, Department of State, Department of Homeland Security, and obviously the Department of Defense. The idealism is that when you enter and continue your career, you're always serving a higher cause, which is why it's called service.
It could be a foreign service officer overseas or it could be someone filing Department of Commerce paperwork to make sure we do a tariff or whatever it is that they do. Either way, their role is just a different function serving a bigger cause.
In my current job in the biotech industry, I quickly embraced that this organization's focus is on the patients. They truly embrace that and are always reminding each other and themselves of their vision of putting the patient first, always acting as if the patient is in the room. This holds you to a higher standard of conduct and virtue that keeps you focused on the big picture.
You're not just helping somebody build a vessel or a bioreactor in the biotech manufacturing process. You're helping someone who will have a role, a hand in something, in assisting a patient ideally heal from something they were suffering from.
One reminder that we have in maintaining that vision is that we routinely bring in patients who have recovered or healed because of the medicine that we had our hands in making sure it came to market. They come back and give us those testimonies to always make sure that we stay focused on the big picture.
Those kinds of things still inspire me. I've always been a person who likes to serve, and this is my way of continuing to serve, but in a different capacity, making sure that medicines are available and safely produced, not from a scientific side, but just from a process and project delivery side.