Manitoba's Top Employers (2025) - Flipbook - Page 52
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MANITOBA’S TOP EMPLOYERS (2025)
StandardAero flies high in training Manitobans
W
hen she applied
for a job at
Winnipeg-based
StandardAero
Ltd. three
years ago, Hannah Leslie was
working in a senior’s home, having
graduated from high school in
the automotive program. That
mechanic’s diploma suited
StandardAero, one of Canada’s
leading aircraft maintenance,
repair and overhaul (MRO) firms,
and today Leslie is testing big,
loud turbofan jet engines as a test
technician.
It’s a lot different than going
under the hood of a car. “It’s fantastic. It’s different every day, and
I get to constantly learn, so that’s
big for me,” says Leslie.
She learned quickly, going
through the company’s Gas
Turbine Repair and Overhaul
(GTRO) technical training
program. “I came here not
knowing even the basic operation
of a jet engine,” she says. “And
everyone being patient with me
and teaching me was huge. People
were even taking extra time and
showing me things they didn’t
have to, just so I’d have a broader
understanding of the whole
engine and even different product
lines.”
In her current job, the General
Electric engines arrive detached
from the aircraft and are rigged up
in her test-cell area, where she and
her colleagues fire them up from
behind a soundproof concrete wall
to check readings on screen. But it
doesn’t have to be her last job.
“You can start out in one department, and if you decide it’s no
longer for you, you can always talk
to someone and they can move
you along to try something else,”
she says. “You’re never stuck in one
position if you don’t want to be.”
That thought is seconded by
Neena Gill, who sits a few buildings away as vice-president and
general manager of the helicopter
division, overseeing helicopter
MRO across North America. Gill
StandardAero is a global leader in MRO services and takes pride in recruiting talent that drives the industry
forward.
herself did not expect to be in
charge of a highly technical area
when she joined the company in
the finance department in 2007
with a commerce degree.
It’s different every
day, and I get to
constantly learn, so
that’s big for me.
— Hannah Leslie
Test Technician
“The good thing about working
at StandardAero is you can be in
a role where you can get a lot of
other experience,” she says. “For
me, working in finance doesn’t
mean that I was just restricted to
finance. I was able to help run the
business for many years alongside
whoever my VP was at the time.”
There are about 1,400 employees in Winnipeg, with up to 60
per cent or so working in MRO on
commercial airlines, component
repair, helicopters, industrial
energy, and government and
military aviation. The company
mainly hires locally, drawing
from college aircraft maintenance
programs and training its own
mechanically-inclined recruits
from other industries, such as
Leslie. “If they’re really good, we’ll
hire them right out of high school
sometimes,” says Gill. In terms of
diversity, an entire all-female cohort from a local college recently
went through the GTRO training
program, and most were hired
afterward.
Some of those hires become members of the fabled
