In 1942 Northrop Aeronautical Institute was founded by John K. Northrop (founder of Northrop Aircraft Company) and James L. McKinley (aviation educator and author of several aeronautical textbooks) to train allied military personnel in maintaining aircraft during WWII. After the war, the two schools merged and the campus was relocated to Inglewood, CA. The demand for highly skilled technicians to work on the growing number of commercial aircraft was on the rise. In 1959 the name was changed to Northrop Institute of Technology and then again in 1975 to Northrop University. As the university mechanics and engineering graduates were working around the world, the high standards of education obtained at the school was now receiving global recognition.

Dr. James W. Rice and Mrs. Mary Alice Rice founded Rice Aviation which had schools across the nation. In 1991 they added the Inglewood campus to build the largest system of aircraft maintenance schools in the United States at that time under the name of Northrop Rice Aviation Institute of Technology (NRAIT). In 1999 Alta Colleges, Inc purchased the Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) Program in Inglewood and Houston. The name was then changed to Westwood College of Aviation Technology. The number of students increased tremendously. In order to reflect diverse programs, the name was changed in 2006 to Redstone College.