Manufacturing Engineering Development Program Prepares Future Generation

Pratt & Whitney's Manufacturing Engineering Development Program is an opportunity for early career engineers to receive technical training and gain exposure to several facets of the manufacturing engineering field.

Cody Harrop: MED stands for Manufacturing Engineering Development Program, it's a two-year rotational program, so there's two years of four six-month rotations.

Megan Piccus: So we bring in new hires and put them through some technical training right up front, so when they're ready to deploy to their first assignment, they can step into the role immediately. They do a role as a part family manufacturing engineer, they do a role as a discipline-specific manufacturing engineer, and then they also do a role as an assembly process engineer.

Mark Campbell: I've enjoyed the MED program a lot. It gives you a great introduction into the company, allows you to go in at zero entry and to start getting your feet wet over the next two years, the next four rotations, your responsibilities will slowly increase and more technical the more capable. And it's great too because it allows you to enter the aeronautics industry as an engineer with just a bachelor's in engineering and still get that experience and still get into the company, and to do it so that you're comfortable and able to gain the confidence to work well.

Stephanie Hemmelgarn: The company invests a lot in the MED program and they really make the MEDs feel valued and feel like we are part of the next generation that's really going to contribute, and I think it's really great to have a place to say, alright, they're investing in me, they want me, and I'm really going to be able to build a career here.

Jack Shaughnessy: It's helping me shape my future. The MED program has a ton of graduates, over 500 or something like that, and when I came into Pratt, there was already that network of MED grads that I could reach out to and ask for advice, ask for help. Every rotation that I was in, there was at least one, if not numerous MED graduates around that I relied on to act as mentors or just help guide me in the daily activities. 

Varun Varghese: So, coming into a program like this is great because if you are even remotely inclined in engineering, I would highly recommend this program because it really opens up doors for you to a lot of different fields.

Jack Shaughnessy: When I got into CSMC I got to work on cutting edge technology with the Advanced Engine Projects Group and that was extremely interesting to me, and I just wanted to stay.

Stephanie Hemmelgarn: It's a great way to jump start your career. We end up with, I think, somewhere close to 600 hours of training by the time we're done with the program, which you don't get in a lot of areas. You learn a lot of stuff, you get to see truly different sides of the business, which is awesome, and it's a great, there you have a lot of mentorship too, so you get to know a lot of different people, which is really great for later on in your career. I think it's a great program.

Mark Campbell: The more I've learned about Pratt & Whitney, the longer I've been here, the more I like it, the more I want to be a part of it.

Jack Shaughnessy: There is a great future at Pratt & Whitney, especially manufacturing, and it's somewhere that you can be for a long time.

Cody Harrop: It really instills confidence in you that you can do the job here and then all the rotations and the mentoring just further all the knowledge that you'll do great things.

Varun Varghese: It's been an amazing time at Pratt so far. I've grown a lot, I've learned a lot, it's been an amazing experience, I think it's made me into a well-rounded engineer and I would do it again in a heartbeat.