OREANDA-NEWS. Aerojet Rocketdyne, Inc., a subsidiary of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc., hosted its largest group of college interns this summer with 79 students. In the past three years, Aerojet Rocketdyne has hired 196 interns from more than 50 different universities across the nation.

“Our internship and co-operative education programs are central to transferring knowledge within the company to the next-generation. We are also able to take advantage of their fresh perspective and incorporate new thoughts and ideas into the company,” said Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and President Eileen Drake.

Aerojet Rocketdyne offers internships to students pursuing many areas of study, including finance, economics and business; however, the majority of the opportunities are in the engineering field. The company matches its interns with a mentor who provides guidance and assigns them a project based on their abilities, college courses completed and area of study. Interns are also included in a program called “Launch” which was created to ease the transition of newly hired recent graduates from college to the work environment through mentoring, social networking and identifying potential leadership opportunities.

“As an intern at Aerojet Rocketdyne I had the opportunity to work alongside some of the most experienced and talented engineers in the aerospace industry,” said Bryce Chanes about his experience this summer working as a Project Engineer Intern at Aerojet Rocketdyne’s Los Angeles facility. “With their guidance and mentorship, I was able to hone my engineering skills and enhance my professional toolset in a way that no other experience can.”

Chanes worked on the important AR1 engine, which will end reliance on the Russian-made RD-180 rocket engine, currently used to power the nation’s most reliable launch vehicle. AR1 is taking advantage of the latest manufacturing processes, materials and technology to be able to rapidly develop and certify an engine by 2019 that will be more capable than the RD-180.

“I am so impressed with our current class of Aerojet Rocketdyne summer interns and the exciting projects they were able to work on, like AR1. They are our future leaders in engineering, science and business,” said Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and President Eileen Drake. “I cannot wait to see what they do next.”

“I believe every college student should have the opportunity to try out the career they think they want to pursue as early as possible to get a feeling about what it’s like to walk in those shoes. I am lucky in that I knew from an early age that this is what I wanted to do,” said Chanes about his experience.

Aerojet Rocketdyne’s internship program currently has interns at eight of its 14 sites and plans to grow the internship program to meet the increased need for qualified employees with real world experience.

Aerojet Rocketdyne is an innovative company delivering solutions that create value for its customers in the aerospace and defense markets. The company is a world-recognized aerospace and defense leader that provides propulsion and energetics to the space, missile defense and strategic systems, tactical systems and armaments areas, in support of domestic and international markets.