Hartselle student interns at Northrop

An Alabama A&M University senior from Hartselle is part of a unique internship arrangement with a major area defense contractor.

James Taz Gerstman

When James Taz Gerstman graduated from high school back in 1997, he studied electronics at Wallace State Community College. After an industry stretch in the electronics and semiconductor fields, Gerstman and two friends decided to form their own business in 2004.

Gerstman was persuaded by his partners to continue his education and to work toward the completion of a bachelor’s degree. He realized that he no longer held a light for the electrical field. Instead, Gerst-man found himself motivated by an earlier course he had taken with Dr. Mohamed Seif at AAMU that dealt with 3-D modeling systems. That class helped to sell Gerstman on mechanical engineering.

As a bona fide AAMU student flanked by his professors, Showkat Chowd-hury and Zhengtao Deng, Gerstman performed four co-op sessions with NASA. However, he soon developed an interest for the military applications of his studies. Through a friend, he learned that the Northrop Grumman Corporation was interested in securing an individual for a year-round internship position.

At Northrop, Gerstman works with a project team that helps provide soldiers with a sophisticated and needed communications base while they are in the field. The project, he says, often entails retrofitting military trucks and other vehicles according to specifications handed down by the Department of Defense.

Following his graduation from AAMU with a mechanical engineering degree, Gerstman says he will be open to all opportunities that will come his way, although he will still strongly consider any chances to again work with 3-D computer-aided design modeling.