Most teenagers would salivate at a beach destination for spring break.

For Julie Arndt, it was the side trip.

Starting in elementary school and continuing through high school, Arndt’s spring break trips were history lessons, directed by father Roland Preuss. He’d shuttle her across the country, exposing her to more than the Midwest, where she grew up.

Arndt’s favorite trips were the ones Dad made specific to her budding passion: Flight.

Julie Arndt (BSAAE '91)

That was birthed when Arndt was merely 5, when she took her first trip on an airplane, traveling with her mom from Michigan to Indiana soon after the family moved on an Eastern Air Lines flight. Arndt was in awe, pressing her head against the window, eyes struggling to focus while trying to absorb everything she was seeing, the expanse of it all. Even then, she realized how amazing flying was, the scope of it, the majesty of it.

“It’s hard to explain the feeling,” she says.

Was then, is even now.

Arndt still is captivated by the marvel of flight, 21 years into an accomplished career with The Boeing Company.

Less than a month from receiving an Outstanding Aerospace Engineering award, given to distinguished alumni of Purdue’s School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Arndt (BSAAE ’91) reflected on her journey from self-described shy Indiana girl fascinated by aerospace to Purdue Dean’s List student to a variety of roles within Boeing.

Purdue played a pivotal role in her professional ascent — she’s currently director of Commercial Managed Programs for Boeing Global Services. So did a co-op experience with General Dynamics while she attended the university in the late 1980s and early 1990s. But, really, so much stems from those spring break trips and Preuss, whom Arndt credits for nurturing her passion for aerospace.

One of the first trips was to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala. A trip to Wright Patterson Air Force Base followed. That one was natural: Arndt’s father and two of her uncles served in the military during World War II, and Dayton, Ohio, was a short drive from Indianapolis. She remembers being captivated by all the different airplanes there.

The last trip to cultivate Arndt’s interest in aerospace was to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, when she was in high school. Daytona Beach was waiting — the only time spring break included a beach — but it was not the main attraction.

And Arndt was perfectly OK with that.

“I was fascinated by the Space Center,” she says. “There were rockets, the shuttle launch pad, and a museum full of history there, and that was in the height of the space era with the shuttle. It was really interesting to learn more about space and about all aspects of the shuttle program at that time. They also have info on the beginning parts of flight, the Gemini missions, and the Apollo Moon landing. It opens your mind to think of things that were outside of what an Indiana girl would normally experience.

“In hindsight, he did me a big favor by taking me on those trips. I learned a lot more than many of my classmates did,” Arndt says with a laugh.

It was good preparation for college, though Purdue proved to be a challenging, demanding environment, and Arndt was exposed to the standard of excellence early.

Arndt started the co-op with General Dynamics as a sophomore. She needed to hit a certain GPA on the then-6.0 scale to maintain eligibility to work. Electrical engineering, “not my strong suit,” she says, had her teetering on the border. Gus Gustafson, a professor, undergraduate counselor and co-op coordinator, told Arndt she was in danger of going on co-op probation. He almost said it like a statement of fact, “You are going to go on a co-op probation.” The girl who rarely spoke up or, even, went to office hours, firmly said, “No, I’m not.” She vowed she would not lose her co-op job and set a goal to make the Dean’s List before she graduated.

“That motivation alone drove me to really focus on my studies and do the best I could,” she says.

By her final semester at Purdue, Arndt made the Dean’s list.

Not that the coursework got any easier as an upperclassman. During her senior year, Arndt took a graduate-level aerodynamics course on VTOL vehicles, taught by John Sullivan. The senior project included having the controls balance between a main and a tail rotor on a helicopter. But few people in the course could understand the complex equation needed to program and do the analysis, Arndt says. So, finally, she went to Sullivan’s office. And the equation was right there on the board.

“It was obvious other students had come in and asked the same question,” she says. “He took the time and walked you through all of it. The course forced you to really think and analyze things.”

Other courses she found challenging, and enjoyable, were Professor James Longuski’s stability and control courses, the aero labs at the wind tunnels, and a combustion course.

Ultimately, Arndt learned she could push herself to achieve more than she thought she could. And, ultimately, developing that critical analytical thinking and ability to solve complex problems served Arndt well.

“It was learning from them and their approach to thinking through things that really helped. I don’t think you realize it when you’re actually in college, that you’re learning this basic skill of how to think through things in a logical manner,” she says. “I don’t think it truly sets in until you’re out in the working world and you’re given a problem or a job that wasn’t in your field of study, but yet it’s an engineering problem to solve. I think that’s where you realize, well, that may not have been my area of study, but I have the foundations of engineering and I can solve any engineering problem with that foundation.”

Arndt credits the traits developed and fostered at Purdue for helping her move up at Boeing, which she called her “dream” job destination.

She joined the company in 1997, starting as a specialist engineer in flight test integration in the Commercial Airplanes organization. After only two years, one of her leads moved on and had an opening in his new group. He urged her to apply.

“I was always a person who said, ‘OK, I’ll give it a try.’ I was curious. I wanted to see more of the company,” she says. “I remained curious.”

She got that job, as a specialist engineer in delivery support engineering, and didn’t stop climbing. That thirst for knowledge — just like when she was a kid exploring on those spring break trips — led to roles spanning from lead engineer, to manager, to program management, to senior manager, to chief engineer, to, now, director.

In total, Arndt has held 15 different roles at Boeing. In her current position, she’s responsible for managing the integration of fleet performance, maintenance execution, supplier management, engineering, and materials for airline operators around the world.  

Though she enjoys her current role, she hopes it’s not the last one she’ll have with Boeing.

“There are so many jobs here, so many opportunities. With the growth of Boeing under Dennis Muilenburg and the horizons he’s set, I just sit and go, ‘Wow, I have 12 years left, maybe, before retirement? I’m never going to get to do everything I’d like to do,’” she says. “Every time I switch jobs, I learn so much more. It’s really about continuing to learn and also at this point giving back by coaching the next generation of engineers and leaders and helping people grow and develop. Your focus changes a bit the older you get, but that passion to learn is still there. Every day I come in, I can find something that I’ve learned, that someone has taught me. It makes it exciting because you don’t know what you’re going to learn the next day.”

An ability to not only adapt well but thrive in each of those new roles and in the midst of new challenges is a credit to Purdue, she says.

“The education that I received at Purdue is the foundation that my career is built on,” she says. “It goes back to critical analytical thinking because if I didn’t have that ability, I wouldn’t have been able to get in these jobs and become proficient at them fast enough so that somebody would notice and then give me other opportunities.”

More on 2019 Class of OAEs:

March 26: Chris Azzano

March 27: Doug Beal

March 28: Mike Dreessen

March 29: Tony Gingiss

April 1: Scott Meyer

April 2: Lindsay Millard

April 3: David Thompson