Every weekday afternoon, while many high school seniors are headed to practice or home, Jayden Rosario drives to work at Williams downtown headquarters.
From 1 to 5 p.m., he’s not shadowing; he’s contributing. As part of Williams’ partnership with nonprofit Genesys Works, Rosario has spent his entire senior year interning with the company’s Supply Chain team, gaining paid professional experience while finishing high school and college coursework.
A partnership that opens doors
Genesys Works connects Tulsa-area students with corporate internships after a summer training program focused on workplace readiness and technical skills. For Williams, the program strengthens community ties and helps develop the next generation of talent. For students like Rosario, it offers an early, tangible look at what a career can be and the confidence to pursue it.
Rosario first started thinking about an internship during his junior year at Union High School. A chance connection helped spark the idea. His father, an Uber driver, met a Williams employee during a ride and brought home a business card. Around the same time, Rosario’s school shared information about Genesys Works. Encouraged by his mother to apply, he completed the program’s interview process and summer training, then began his Williams internship in September.
His schedule is packed in a way that would wear out most adults.
Rosario starts mornings with AP Calculus, then manages virtual college classes before heading to the office. This spring, he added another milestone: earning an associate degree through Tulsa Community College’s concurrent enrollment program, before even graduating high school. He eagerly accepted these challenges and is graduating high school as a salutatorian.
“This year at Williams has taught me time after time again how to dissolve the self-doubt,” Rosario said. “Now that I’m about to go, I feel ready. I feel like anything is possible.”
Working on real problems
On the job, Rosario has worked on both day-to-day requests and a longer-term capstone project tied to a real business need: exploring how artificial intelligence could help “equalize” purchasing data by identifying when part numbers or SKUs aren’t used correctly in systems. The goal is to reduce manual effort, improve accuracy and make it easier for teams to capture the pricing benefits tied to standardized item numbers.
Along the way, Rosario has learned what supply chain is, and how emerging technology is changing it.
Supply Chain Manager Clem Collins has mentored several Genesys Works interns and says Rosario stands out for his professionalism and initiative. He shows up consistently, manages his workload and isn’t afraid to tackle “grunt work” alongside complex challenges.
A future reimagined
The experience also reshaped Rosario’s goals. He entered Williams interested in petroleum engineering, but exposure to how teams are adopting AI broadened his perspective. This fall, he plans to move to California to study AI engineering at the University of Southern California.
“Change is so important to me,” he said. “I want to be responsible for work that outlives myself.”
For Rosario, the internship has been more than a line on a resume. It’s been a year of mentorship, growth and belonging.
Now, Rosario encourages other students to sign up for programs like Genesys Works.
“The main thing I tell them is that it really changed my life,” he said. “The kind of person I was before the program compared to now — that’s a night-and-day difference. Who I am today is a product of all the people who have poured into me.”
For Williams, programs like this help support the Tulsa community while giving young leaders an early start, said Collins.
“It gives students a chance to preview what their future could look like and sometimes even change their direction,” Collins said. “For Williams, it’s about building a talent pipeline and investing in our community.”