Military, civilian mentorship key to success Published Sept. 28, 2011 By Kathleen Donnelly NAVAIR engineering director JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J. -- It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to participate in the commander's commentary forum for the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst publications. For those who don't know me, I am the Naval Air Systems Command Engineering Director for Support Equipment and Aircraft Launch and Recovery Equipment at Lakehurst. Within NAVAIR engineering, each engineering director has the privilege of having a military director rotate in every two to three years or so. I believe it is extremely valuable in that it gives the department a "fresh look" and reinforces engineers to continuously think from the user's perspective. We recently had a turn-over within our organization with the departure of Navy Capt. "Opie" Swenson and have welcomed Cmdr. "Sato" Bartosh to take over the military director reins. Opie had shared his fleet experience with both military and civilians within the organization and we look forward to gaining insight from Sato's experience as well. It certainly is career enhancing for the military directors in terms of gaining increased knowledge and awareness within various areas of the Navy. New insight and perspective of how things work on the side of supporting the fleet is eye opening and always beneficial. I believe the military directors leave with a better understanding of the amount of technical rigor we apply to ensure the end item is safe, meets the users' needs, reduces maintenance and minimizes total ownership costs. On the flip side, the engineering department, fortunate enough to have the military support, gets direct input on what the fleet wants and needs. This is a true link to the "voice of the customer" which enables knowledge sharing and opens the door for a two-way mentorship both for the military position and the parallel civilian counter parts. When I started my civilian career almost 27 years ago, mentoring was not a very common activity. Since then, the Navy has done a terrific job of changing that to a more common-place, expected and encouraged activity - to have a mentor and to be a mentor - regardless of what level you are within organization. Having a mentor provides access to a support system during the critical development of young careers as well as development within a new job or leadership position. It provides the opportunity to gain insight from the mentor's experience and starts the protégée down the path of establishing and/or expanding his or her network. Early in my career, when I first heard the term "networking," it left a negative connotation in that I had the perception people only networked to "get something" - and I didn't want to be like that. I came to understand this was not the case. It makes it much easier to use your network contacts in resolving a problem or issue by reaching out to someone you know rather than starting cold with someone you don't know. I believe it is important to reach out and not only discuss the benefits of mentoring, but to also encourage others to be a mentor. Mentoring enhances your own professional development as well as your protégée's. You can gain insight as to what is really going on within your organization by reaching out and having conversations with not only the junior and journeymen engineers but also the "high-grade" leaders. You can also share your experience and lessons learned as to how you handled a difficult situation and what you would have done differently. The good news is, those protégées who select you as a mentor actually want to listen to what you have to say and learn how they can avoid some of the mistakes you made along the way. Now if only I could get my 17-year-old son to listen to me or my husband ... I encourage you to take the time to at least volunteer as an informal mentor. I can guarantee you will find it quite rewarding. "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." - Maya Angelou