Jack Wachter
Title: Student at Loyola Blakefield and former intern at T. Rowe Price
Age: 16
When Jack Wachter hears about cyberattacks on the news, the first thing he thinks is, "maybe I could have prevented it."
The 16-year-old Loyola Blakefield student is highly invested in the growing cybersecurity industry and this summer had the opportunity to merge his interests in cyber and finance through an internship with T. Rowe Price Group Inc.
He is the third high schooler to be invited to work with the Baltimore money manager's global technology team, which is charged with securing the retirement savings of millions of people worldwide. One of Wachter's internship managers at T. Rowe, Jeff Six, referred to the work as the highest level in the cyber industry other than national security.
That's not the type of responsibility most high schoolers are accustomed to, but Wachter says he isn't phased by the pressure.
"I just have to focus on what I'm doing," he said.
Wachter, a junior at the Towson-area private college preparatory school, said he learned about the internship opportunity from Stephen Morrill, the director of his school's cybersecurity club — the largest club at Loyola with a little more than 100 participants.
Through Cyber Science Informatics, Wachter has developed his knowledge and skills and participated in local, national and global cyber competitions. The club aims to educate people about cybersecurity and also goes in-depth, teaching students how to secure systems.
Wachter also works with other students on Cyber Science Informatics' leadership team to develop challenges for its in-house, statewide competition, LBC2. Another competition the club participates in, Cyber Patriot, is organized by the U.S. Air Force and tasks teams with securing different operating systems in real-life scenarios. These types of experiences provide hands-on experience and helped prepare Wachter for his internship.
T. Rowe's high school internship program is specific to Loyola Blakefield and highly competitive, with only one spot available. The company works with Morrill to identify top students for the position.
"The fact that he was interested in both [finance and cybersecurity] makes him a unicorn," said Six, senior director of security architecture, identity management and engineering at T. Rowe.
Wachter described the experience as "surprising" because he had never worked in an office before. His internship required him to come to T. Rowe's Owings Mills campus four days a week and allowed for remote work on Fridays.
"Everyone is very productive and goal-oriented," he said. "They know what they want to do and have a plan to get there."
In working with the 2,000-person global technology team, Wachter helped with automating processes that help ensure the company's financial applications are free of security defects.
He was paid $12.50 per hour for his 9-to-5 summer gig, which T. Rowe covers. The company's leadership has many close ties to Loyola, including Six and former CEO William Stromberg, both of whom are alumni of the school.
"We recognize [Loyola] is a very good source of talent," Six said, adding that the company has also evolved some of its hiring practices to embrace alternative hires or individuals who do not come from a traditional four-year college. He said T. Rowe is looking to embrace more local opportunities like the one at Loyola.
"We want to get people with all types of diverse backgrounds into this space," he said. "That's the only way we will be able to compete for talent."
Outside of school, Wachter has also developed two projects on his own. The first is a program he started two years ago that integrates with stock market APIs to pull data from the web, which his algorithm then analyzes and compares to other stocks to determine what to buy and sell. He uses it himself and has sold it as a stock market indicator. The second is an automated sneaker buying bot that has given Wachter an inside track on the lucrative sneaker resell market.
"I like finding cool ways to incorporate cyber into whatever I do," Wachter said.
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