Malachi Reid on Losing Baseball, Finding Biotech and Starting the 29:11 Foundation

Malachi Reid grew up in Montgomery County planning to pitch in college and, someday, for the Washington Nationals. A shoulder injury before his senior baseball season at Wootton High School changed that plan. Reid now works as an apprentice at AstraZeneca’s Gaithersburg facility while studying biotechnology at Montgomery College, and he is starting a foundation to introduce more county students to science careers.

Reid joined Moderately Mic’d for Episode 11 to talk about losing baseball, finding biotech, what an apprentice actually does in a lab, and the 29:11 Foundation he is building. Moderately MOCO first told Reid’s story in June, in From Dugout to Discovery: Montgomery County Apprentice Finds a Second Act in Biotech.

The pop in his shoulder

Reid said baseball was his identity growing up, and that by high school he was weighing Division I programs. “I was selecting between a multitude of schools from Mount St. Mary’s to Towson to UMBC,” Reid said. “My childhood dream was to play for the Washington Nationals.”

Reid said the injury came during winter workouts before his senior season. “One day I was throwing and I heard a pop in the back of my shoulder,” Reid said. “The next day I couldn’t move my arm.” Reid said doctors found a tear in his rotator cuff. He said he went through physical therapy without surgery, but his pitching mechanics never came back.

“That was the worst feeling I’d ever felt in my entire life,” Reid said of the end of his baseball career. He said he went months without motivation, and that his family held him up. Reid said he had never had a plan B. “A plan B is the most powerful thing you could ever have,” Reid said, and that is now the message he shares with students.

Finding biotech

Reid said his interest in medicine comes from his mother, a nurse at Holy Cross Germantown, who had surgery at Hopkins in 2019 to remove a non-cancerous tumor. Reid said he was in seventh grade and spent about 10 hours waiting during the operation. When AstraZeneca’s interviewers asked why he wanted the job, Reid said, he told them about his mother. “That was my why,” Reid said.

Reid said he enrolled at Montgomery College to rehab his shoulder, moved into biotechnology, and learned about the AstraZeneca apprenticeship in January, when a professor encouraged him to apply. Reid called himself “AstraZeneca’s first laboratory science apprentice” and said he is one of two apprentices in the program, which he described as a pilot launched with Montgomery College. Reid said he started at AstraZeneca at 19.

Reid said he explains his job with an analogy he first used at a career day at the elementary school where his father teaches P.E. “So think of medicine as orange juice,” Reid said. “You have to grow your oranges.” Reid said his work is in upstream manufacturing, growing cells to produce the protein or antibody, and then sends the harvested product downstream for purification.

Reid said he was surprised to be working beside “people that have master’s degrees and PhDs that have been in this field for longer than I’ve been alive.” Reid said being new led him to question routines. “I started asking why a lot,” Reid said. Reid said he uses Python and AI tools to automate data analysis, and that he built himself an AI-driven schedule that pings him until an assignment is done.

“I think they assume that I have it all figured out. And I don’t,” Reid said of how people see his schedule. “I never allow myself to cross the finish line. I’m always moving the goalposts.”

Reid said his long-term interest is data science, and that a computer science degree “would just further unlock what I’m doing now.”

Speaking at the Department of Labor

Reid spoke at the U.S. Department of Labor during National Apprenticeship Week this spring. The MoCo Show reported in January that he would share his story there. Reid said meeting AstraZeneca executives that day was “a surreal feeling,” and he credited the company’s talent director and his line manager for seeing his potential.

Reid said apprenticeships let students work and study at the same time, and that he thinks graduates with that experience will be valued more than those without it. Reid also urged undecided students to consider Montgomery College before paying four-year tuition. “I think MC is severely undervalued in this county,” Reid said.

The 29:11 Foundation

The foundation’s name comes from Jeremiah 29:11, the Bible verse Reid said was on his cap at his high school graduation party. Reid said that at the time, he thought the verse’s promise of a future meant baseball.

Reid said the idea for the foundation grew from talks he gave at county high schools, where he runs an exercise called “Give Me 10.” Reid said students can easily name 10 athletes, 10 musicians or 10 actors, but struggle to name 10 scientists, lawyers or doctors. Reid said Down County schools have less access to resources, and that the foundation wants to close that gap. “So we kind of want to be the bridge in between that talent gap,” Reid said.

Reid said the foundation also plans to teach financial literacy, because an outside mentor got him into investing when he turned 18. Reid said the foundation hopes to take on a first cohort of about 10 to 15 students this year, and eventually to help MCPS build a database of mentors who can visit schools. “If I can have one kid come up to me and say, hey, the Foundation changed my life,” Reid said, that would be success.

“A man of God”

Asked which identity fits him best now (athlete, scientist, apprentice, programmer, speaker or founder), Reid said “a man of God.” Reid said people who see where he is now miss the hard middle period he went through “last year.”

Asked what he would tell himself on the day of the injury, Reid said: “just trust God and it’s going to be okay.”

Reid said the best place to reach him and learn about the 29:11 Foundation is LinkedIn, under Malachi Reid.

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