What does Pete Deremer like best about his incredibly multifaceted job at M&S Consulting in Washington, D.C.?
“I love the changing landscape of my clients. Sometimes I’m working with a federal agency, sometimes I’m working in higher education, and sometimes it’s with commercial clients,” Deremer said. “What Client A is strong at may be a weakness for Client B. And what B is doing well may not be a strong point for A.”
Deremer has worked in technology for more than a decade and is, by any measure, accomplished in his field. He started with entry-level work on desktops while an undergraduate at West Virginia University and, as he put it, “went on to server work and just kept running.” Now, among other duties, he is on a cloud migration team that is transferring all of Harvard University’s applications from a data center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Amazon Web Services (AWS).
This kind of work takes technological expertise, of course, but also a working knowledge of project management and financial management—skills he acquired in Georgetown’s graduate program in Technology Management.
“Georgetown absolutely filled the gaps in my knowledge portfolio,” said Deremer, who completed the program in 2015.
The program also introduced him to other industry professionals who would become his friends and colleagues. He especially appreciated the program’s two-week Italian Immersion Program, which enables people with full-time jobs to experience foreign study without having to take a break from work.
Technology is a fast-paced, ever-changing career, and Deremer has excelled at the art of adapting to it.
“The real world doesn’t let you plan,” he said. “It lets you pivot.
