Gold Star Spouse Thanks Navy Federal Credit Union for Supporting Her Dream Career in Data Science

By: Allison Stevens

Amber Sax is only a decade into her career in data science, but she knows she’ll spend the rest of it at Navy Federal Credit Union.

“I will be here for life,” she happily declares.

What inspires this data analyst’s undying loyalty? Her unshakeable belief that Navy Fed has her back, a faith won in the hardest of ways.

Two years ago, the unthinkable happened: Sax’s husband, Capt. John J. Sax, an aviator with the US Marine Corps, perished during a routine flight training mission near their home in southern California. Four other Marines also lost their lives that summer day—Capt. Nicholas Losapio, Cpl. Nathan Carlson, Cpl. Seth Rasmuson and Lance Cpl. Evan Strickland—when their aircraft suffered an unrecoverable mechanical failure.

Then six months pregnant with their second child, Sax asked a colleague to pass her devastating news on to her manager. She had no idea when—or even if—she would return. But Navy Federal leapt into action, updating her personnel file, filing necessary claims and coordinating coverage over an indefinite leave. The effort enabled Sax to grieve the loss of her husband and care for her family without fretting about job security.

“I only had to make one phone call to one person,” Sax recalls. “The team provided the support I needed during the most difficult time of my life—and ultimately helped me as I continue to heal.” For that reason alone, she will never, ever, leave Navy Federal, she says.

Best Place to Work in IT

Such company loyalty is unusual at a time when job-hopping is the norm, the concept of “resenteeism” has entered the workplace lexicon alongside such other HR scourges as “absenteeism” and “presenteeism” and workers are routinely “quiet quitting,” “rage applying” or, recently, resigning en masse in the so-called Great Resignation.

Job turnover rates are especially high in the tech sector, according to a 2024 LinkedIn analysis—but not at Navy Federal, regarded as one of the world’s top information technology (IT) workplaces. For the 10th year in a row, Navy Federal made Computerworld magazine’s annual list of best workplaces in IT.

The list was developed in response to surveys about employee turnover and retention rates; training and opportunities for career growth; benefits like eldercare and childcare; flexible work, like remote and hybrid options; and equity and inclusion practices. Nominees were vetted by a panel of experts and scored by a third-party vendor.

Navy Federal, the only credit union on the list, was singled out for its flexibility and investment in career development, winning top honors among large companies in the former category and placing 7th in the latter. That flexibility applies not only to time and location, but also to the work itself, observes Jonathan Lazenby, who manages business intelligence and data science at Navy Federal. “There’s a lot of room to explore and experiment,” he says. “We know the strategy; how we achieve it is up to us.”

Mathew Leonard, another Navy Federal business analyst, echoes the sentiment, describing the culture as friendly and casual—and nothing like the stereotypical buttoned-up corporate environment. “The mindset here really puts people at ease,” he said. “It allows for the opportunity to make mistakes. I love that openness.”

Culture of Compassion

Navy Federal’s mission-first culture—to serve members of the military community—resonates deeply with Sax, a vocal Gold Star Spouse. When her husband died, her colleagues, many of whom also have direct ties to the military, knew precisely how to respond. “I didn’t have to say much,” she said. “They just understood.”

Sax appreciates Navy Federal for other reasons too, such as its many opportunities for growth—and even reinvention.

A one-time bank teller, Sax started her career with Navy Federal in its collections department, where she supported efforts to prevent payment delinquencies and improve members’ financial health. Though she arrived with limited experience in data science, Lazenby and other colleagues further illuminated the wonders of predictive modeling and took the time to explain how to harness it to gain powerful insights into member behavior. “They were complete rockstars,” Sax said.

Her colleagues also encouraged her to pursue her budding interest in the field, which she did when she and her late husband received permanent change of station (PCS) orders. Soon after arriving in her new home in Texas, she enrolled in a master’s program in the science of data analytics while also working as an analytics consultant.

Upon earning her degree, a former colleague reached out with news of a job opening in quantitative modeling, in which analysts use mathematical formulas to interpret market trends. Sax jumped at the opportunity, particularly because the credit union’s option to work remotely would enable her to advance her career while also managing periodic military moves. Though Sax no longer faces the prospect of such moves, she says flexible work options help her raise her daughters as a sole, surviving parent.

Today, Sax supports data literacy, an initiative in which she trains colleagues to understand the role data plays in member service. One way she does that is by supporting the credit union’s biannual “Datathon,” where participants connect data to their everyday work, such as predicting when members might be deployed.

She also has time and space to support an employee resource group for members of the military community and head up a foundation that provides aviation scholarships in her late husband’s name and advocates for safer military aircraft and support for military families.

In the meantime, Sax does her best to “pay it forward,” urging fellow military spouses and Veterans to apply for positions with the credit union, and particularly in IT—and she assures them that she’ll be there to support their journey along the way. “I love what I do,” she said, “and I hope to inspire others to join me.”

To learn more about job opportunities in IT and employee benefits at Navy Federal, visit Navy Federal’s careers page.