Albert Swantner

Outstanding Young Mechanical Engineer, 2020
BSME, The University of Texas at Austin, 2007
MSME, The University of Texas at Austin, 2009

Albert is the CTO and Co-Founder of Mobile Tech RX, an Austin-based startup developing technology for the automotive reconditioning industry. Under his leadership, the company has grown exponentially and successfully positioned itself as a leading automotive service tool. He was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas and graduated from The University of Texas at Austin, where he received a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering.

Albert was initially accepted into The University of Texas Civil Engineering program and later transferred to Mechanical Engineering due to its broad range of study. While a student at UT, Albert was involved with the Formula SAE team and in undergraduate research studying optimization and automation. He continued this research under Dr. Matthew Campbell and wrote his graduate thesis on the automated design of gear trains, had multiple conference papers accepted, and ultimately a journal paper published in Engineering Optimization. Albert held two internships during his undergraduate career: at Reinhart and Associates performing non-destructive testing and at Flextronics designing medical devices. He was also a teaching assistant in the senior design project class while in graduate school.

After graduation in 2009, with the economy still recovering, his job offer at Flextronics was rescinded a week before he was set to start. So, with a degree in hand, his first job out of graduate school was waiting tables at Mama Fu’s in Austin. Later that same year, he landed a job with a small design firm, working on products including electric batteries for scooters. This work was rewarding but ultimately, after a short stint he realized his true passion was entrepreneurship. In 2010, he started a consulting agency called Bohemian Innovation where he was able to work with companies like Adidas, Microsoft, Walmart, and Fox, but also had the opportunity to start companies like Charity Miles, which received a Webby award, and Sway Water, a consumer product that was carried in over 300 stores. In 2015, he began work on Mobile Tech RX, which is venture backed and is used by thousands of automotive companies to run their businesses. In his role as CTO, he leads the engineering, product, and support teams and has grown the company from an idea to a product that is disrupting the automotive industry.

Outside of work, Albert is married to his beautiful wife Sarah; they have two young sons, Elliott and Everett. He is deeply involved in both the Austin and The University of Texas communities. He is a Notley and Culturati Fellow and is on the board for Big Brothers Big Sisters, Naturally Austin, the Austin Monitor, UT Lutheran Campus Ministry and Knowbility. Albert is also on the advisory board for SXSW, DivInc, and the Humanitarian Engineering program at UT. He has volunteered as a mentor for Longhorn Startup and a scholarship reviewer for the Forty Acres Society.