When executives and the sales team of Bell Helicopter were meeting with potential customers at the Farnborough Air show in England last month, they had virtual eyes backing them up.
At Bell's headquarters in Fort Worth, Michael Ramsey, a marketing intern from the University of Texas at Arlington, was capturing Twitter and Facebook comments of the folks attending the air show and commenting on Bell's aircraft and competitors.Using those comments, Ramsey coached the Bell representatives and helped them tailor their sales pitch, especially on the company's planned 525 Relentless commercial helicopter.Ramsey is one of 145 college students Bell hired this summer throughout the company to provide creative input. About 130 work at Bell facilities in the Fort Worth area, the rest in Amarillo and elsewhere.It's part of a broader strategy to infuse Bell's workforce with young, talented employees."It's about innovation. It's about getting new ideas and energy," said Suzanne Purdum, Bell's director of total rewards and talent acquisition.Bell Chief Executive John Garrison has made a priority of attracting young talent to gain a competitive advantage in the commercial marketplace. As part of that effort, Bell expanded its internship program this year from about 80 students in each of the previous two summers.Managers and department heads are pushed to create structured projects for interns, with defined goals and objectives that will allow them to return to school with a record of accomplishment and satisfaction.It's a recruiting tool for Bell, Purdum said. The company has offered jobs to as many as 40 percent of its interns in past years, a figure she expects to decline some with the larger class and as the company sets the bar higher for the people and skills it wants.The interns come from various universities and majors. The University of Texas, the University of Texas at Arlington and Texas Christian University are prime on the list, but the company also looks to major engineering colleges with rotorcraft programs such as Georgia Tech and Penn State.Ramsey, a Colleyville resident, is one of two marketing interns who were hired to assist with the Relentless program, the company's most ambitious commercial helicopter development program ever. The interns have played a role in the entire marketing effort, including advertising and public relations."We're giving feedback to the whole Relentless team," Ramsey said. "This is real-world experience I've been getting."Ramsey came up with the idea of monitoring social media for comments from the thousands of people attending Farnborough, which turned out to be a valuable and eye-opening experience for Bell, said Dave King, chief engineer on the Relentless program.Brandon Magalhaes, a mechanical engineering student from UT Austin, has been deeply involved in studying the helicopter's hydraulic systems, analyzing what could go wrong and how to deal with problems, and preparing documentation Bell will use in eventually gaining Federal Aviation Administration certification.Magalhaes didn't come to Bell as an aviation buff but says now that it's "something I can see myself doing for the rest of my life. I've already put in my résumé" for a job after graduation.And so has Ramsey. "It has pulled me in," he said of his summer at Bell.Bob Cox, 817-390-7723Twitter: @bobcoxictHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
