Alex Appelhans

Growing up in the Denver area, Alex always loved cars and things that went fast. As he grew up, his love for aviation grew as well. So when the time came, he signed up for Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology and graduated from the Airframe and Powerplant program with a job at Northrup Grumman.

Alex is excited knowing that the projects that he works on are making a difference in STEM. Currently, Alex works at Ball Aerospace as a Production Supervisor.

Transcript:

Hi, my name is Alex Alphonse and I am a production supervisor at Ball Aerospace.

I've been in aviation for roughly 25 years. I grew up in the Littleton area in the south side of Denver. I always loved cars. I love things that went fast and things that were loud. There was a lot of family members that were in aviation, like my dad always was a big pusher for aviation. He loved the industry. We had family members that actually were, going back to post-world War two. When I smelled jet fuel, to this day, I associate that with happy times. Because it was when I was growing up every time, I smelled jet fuel it was, we were going on a trip. We were going to Mexico, we were going to Europe, we were going, we were going somewhere fun!

I liked coming here. Yeah, I was learning stuff every day, but it was it was fun. It was stuff that I wanted to learn. It was relevant to what I was wanted to do and where I wanted to go.

When I graduated, I had an opportunity to interview with Northrop Grumman and they hired me. So, I moved out there and it was it, was an incredible experience working on the B-2 Bomber. However, my heart was actually in Denver, so I moved back here with my future wife and that job directly led into an opportunity to Ball Aerospace.

Working at Ball Aerospace for 23 years has given me some outstanding opportunities to work on some programs that I am exceptionally proud of. I worked directly on the Mars rover, Deep Impact, WorldView, stuff that's making a difference in science and technology every day.