JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J. -- Joint Base MDL community members took part in a mentorship challenge across the installation, Jan. 25, 2019.
The challenge encouraged people to both mentor and seek out mentorship.
“I think everybody has something to give as far as a mentor-mentee relationship is concerned,” said Scott Gericke, 87th Force Support Squadron Force Development Flight chief. “What is your career progression? How did you make those advancements along the way? What did it take for you to get to that next job, or next position? Those are the types of questions that participants talk about.”
Part of the base’s decennial celebration, the mentorship day saw over 500 people mentored by participating volunteers.
“The mentorship challenge allows you to seek out mentors,” said Roenika Wiggins, 87th Air Base Wing assistant staff judge advocate and co-chair of the decennial planning committee. “To this day I can still call back on any mentor I ever had. We all have a lot to learn from each other.”
The first to act on this initiative, Joint Base MDL issued the mentorship challenge to all services on the installation. In a friendly rivalry, service members from different branches competed to garner the highest participation.
“We wanted to show that we can shoot for 2,000 people in order to get them mentored, and set the standard and the bar for other bases to follow,” said Gericke. “Our initial surveys are showing over 500 participants with many more still pouring in.”
Senior leaders across the U.S. Armed Forces encourage service members and civilian employees to find mentors early on in their careers to help guide their future.
“Mentoring is always a learning experience,” said Wiggins. “Failure itself is a form of experience. As long as you’re falling forward if you fail, that’s all that matters. The point of a mentor is to ensure that you know how to get back up and learn from that experience.”