September 25, 2026
By Tracie Troha
For George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering student Alexa Hoang, attending a guest lecture on campus led to a summer internship at StandardAero and an opportunity to gain firsthand experience in the aerospace industry.
Hoang, a third-year mechanical engineering major, first learned about StandardAero when Russell Ford, the company’s CEO and a Woodruff School alumnus, spoke about his journey from studying mechanical engineering to leading one of the world’s largest independent maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) providers as part of the College of Engineering's Dean's Distinguished Lecture Series.
After the lecture, she introduced herself, and the conversation led to Ford sharing her resume with the company’s hiring team.
“I was searching for internships in the aerospace industry at the time, so after listening to [Ford’s] lecture, I talked with him to learn more,” Hoang said. “He was incredibly friendly and made me realize that StandardAero could be a place where I could learn and gain experience in the aviation industry.”
Hoang spent 11 weeks at StandardAero’s Dallas-Fort Worth location, which primarily services business jet engines. She interned in the Pratt & Whitney service engineering department, working with PW300 and PW500 engines.
Her first project was developing inspection procedures for the balancing tooling used during engine rotor assembly. Each rotor requires a corresponding adapter to mount it to a balancing machine, Hoang explained, and those adapters must be inspected periodically.
“Through my project, I learned about the entire rotor assembly process and focused on balancing,” she said. “My other projects exposed me to other parts of the service engineer’s job, from investigating bird strikes to developing custom heating tools.”
Between projects, Hoang spent time in the shop shadowing service engineers as they investigated engines that came into the facility and followed their repair processes. The experience offered a close-up look at the variety of problems engineers encounter and the different approaches required to solve them.
“The best part of my internship was how hands-on I got to be,” Hoang said.
One of the biggest lessons she took away from the experience was the importance of communication and developing engineering solutions that can adapt to different situations.
“The service engineer’s role in engine maintenance is to own the MRO process for each broken engine that comes in, so the job can vary a lot while the requirements and restrictions remain the same,” she said.
Hoang said her time at StandardAero gave her a deeper understanding of an industry she hopes to join after graduation. It also taught her the value of simply showing up, asking questions and making connections.
Hoang encourages other Georgia Tech students interested in internships to take advantage of opportunities to hear directly from companies and professionals on campus.
“Never be afraid to show enthusiasm and curiosity,” she said.
