2021 HENAAC Awards

While Alexander Szeto devotes his working hours to his duties as a Senior Systems Engineering Manager at Northrop Grumman, he, like many superheroes, leads a double life in his free time.

By day, Mr. Szeto leads a team overseeing the full engineering life cycle of special test equipment for the F-35 Raptor program – a team that includes senior engineers and technical fellows.  Despite these and other high-profile responsibilities at Northrop Grumman, he still makes the time to volunteer thousands of hours to coach, mentor, and fundraise for STEM- and education-related initiatives in and around his San Diego home. 

As the head coach of Team Inspiration, a robotics team fifteen students, Mr. Szeto led his squad to the FIRST Robotics world championship in Houston three different years. In 2020, he helped Team Inspiration become the first team composed of middle and high schoolers to win the world title in the RoboSub competition in.

As a director of the San Diego Mesa College Foundation board, Mr. Szeto has donated and fundraised over one hundred thousand dollars the last several years to support scholarships, social justice initiatives, innovation grants, and food support for students and families in need.

His commitment to community service is his small way of paying back a nation that took him in as an 18-year-old refugee from Vietnam with just a ninth-grade education and limited English capability. After earning an Associate Degree in Math, he soon completed his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Aerospace Engineering, propelling him into a remarkable career that’s given him the means and the focus to better the community around him.