Najib Joe Hakim/S.F. Public Press

Former printing press operator Kiel Copeland has advanced from intern to team leader in his three years at Prosetta, a San Francisco-based biotech startup.

With his ponytail and goatee, Kiel Copeland looks like your average lab geek almost as much as TV’s gleaming “CSI” laboratory resembles one in real life. Then again, he never aimed to be a lab nerd. Misfortune — and luck — brought him to where he is today, after losing his job when his employer went out of business. Now the 27-year-old former printing-press operator is a team leader in a San Francisco company on the verge of a breakthrough with its revolutionary antiviral drugs.

Copeland’s new career path began with Bridge to Biotech, a City College of San Francisco program that helps students without a science background gain laboratory certification. He found out about the program from a flier at an employment office. The idea of going into biotech seemed tempting — but unrealistic for someone not educated in the field.

“Science always seemed to me like something for the intellectual elite, the smartest of the smart,” Copeland said. “I never saw myself as that. It was something that I couldn’t accomplish.”

The City College program was designed to meet a clear workforce demand. Over the years, Bay Area biotechnology companies have said that a dearth of skilled workers could jeopardize the region’s position as a leading biotech hub. A recent report on the state of the biotech industry by two nonprofit organizations and a consulting firm cited “failure to encourage workforce development and growth” as the greatest threat to the future of California’s biomedical industry. Nearly half of the roughly 100 company CEOs surveyed ranked “an unprepared workforce” among the top three threats.

But in spite of this, many big companies have been hesitant to take Bridge to Biotech students on as interns. Some will only consider four-year-degree students, not two-year ones, even to fill internships.

Laurence Clement, the program’s internship coordinator, said there is room for these two-year graduates in local biotech firms.

“They do the basic manipulation experiments that people don’t want to do all day,” Clement said. “It’s taking so much money for companies to have four-year-degree students do such work.”

Bridge to Biotech mainly targets minority students without a background in science. Since its launch in 2002, it has reached 609 students, 82 percent of whom make it through the program. Also, 83 percent of that group go on to take more college classes. According to recent numbers from the National Center for Education Statistics, only 43.7 percent of students in less-than-two-year institutions graduate within the normal program timeframe.

Funding crisis

But in the last year, the program has run into financial trouble. The National Science Foundation, followed by a Vocational and Technical Education Act grant, financed the formation of Bridge to Biotech in 2002. In addition, the Bay Area Workforce Funding Collaborative paid for the establishment of the internship program in 2007.

Now those funds — about $1.2 million over six years — are running out. Bridge to Biotech needs money not just to do the training. Recruitment and internship placement are also expensive. 

To help solve the money problem, Edie Kaeuper, the coordinator of Bridge to Biotech (and director of the City College biotech programs) has shifted parts of the program into regular City College classes. For example, the twice-yearly Bridge to Biotech networking event is produced by a class called Organizing a Scientific Conference.