Finding a good mentor is not always easy. There are plenty of them out there, but you need to find the one that works best for you and your plans. An important first step in finding a mentor is reviewing your goals and understanding where you want to go in your career. Once you are comfortable with your career plan, then you can go ahead and try to find a mentor that matches up well with your vision. I recommend that you find someone that has achieved similar goals, as they will be able to give you specific advice on the steps you should take.

When you are ready to start looking for a mentor, check with your Human Resources department as many companies have formal mentoring programs. If this type of assistance is not available through your company, ask some of the other engineers in your firm if they have worked with a mentor or know of any engineers that may be interested in mentoring.

If your co-workers can’t help you, ask your supervisor if he/she knows of someone, either within or outside the company that would be interested in mentoring a younger engineer. Don’t be afraid to ask your supervisor for help. Based on my experience they will not think less of you for asking for assistance. Actually, your initiative and drive to better yourself will most likely impress them. You may or may not want to ask your supervisor directly to be your mentor. As you already have a lot of interaction with this person, sometimes adding a mentoring aspect to the relationship could make your working relations somewhat overbearing. It may be best to consider someone else so you get a different perspective from what you are already learning from your supervisor.

If you can’t find a mentor within your company, check with your local professional engineering societies. Many of these have mentoring programs where they will pair you up with a more experienced engineer in your particular field. Whether or not you are a member of any relevant organization, you still may be able to participate in their mentoring program, so definitely contact them for more information.

If you still can’t find a mentor through any of these sources, you can always turn to the Internet. While it would be nice to have a person specifically recommended to you, there are plenty of websites where you can connect with people that may be a good match for you. For example, you can use the social networking site LinkedIn to search by zip code for mentors in your area. The mentoring relationship can work in person, over the telephone, or through web applications (i.e. Skype), if you are comfortable with those formats, so don’t put geographic limits on your search.

Yes, it may take some time and effort to find a great mentor, but if you do your research and select the right person, they can have a profoundly positive impact on your career. If you don’t find the right person the first time, try again. There are so many people out there that want to help you – you just have to ask!

The rest of Chapter 3 will discuss the mentoring relationship in detail including the importance of accountability and give strategies for getting the most out of the mentoring relationship.

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To Your Success!

Anthony Fasano, P.E., LEED AP, ACC
Your Professional Partner

Ben Matthews

Featured Guest Blogger: Ben Matthews, P.E.

Ben Matthews is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Texas and a distinguished graduate from the U.S. Air Force Academy where he also played football.  Ben completed his Master’s degree in Construction Management at the University of Texas at Austin while serving on active duty.  He met his wife at UT and they now have 2 young children.  Since separating from the Air Force in June 2007, Ben has been working in the private sector.  An active networker, he currently serves on the SAME National Board of Direction as the College Outreach chair.  Ben works for Freese and Nichols in Fort Worth, TX as a Program Manager for federal clients providing asset management/infrastructure engineering solutions.  You can link to Ben on Linkedin or email him at samecollegeoutreach@gmail.com.  Ben will be a guest on our Radio Show on October 4th at 12 pm EST to discuss the topic of mentoring.

Did you know China is currently producing 392,000 engineers per year? While that number is less than 1% of their total population it still is 6 times as many engineers as the United States produces each year.  To make matters even more challenging, of the 60,000 engineers that are educated in the United States annually, almost half return to their native countries.

As we begin the 2010-2011 academic school year, what are you doing to make sure we have enough engineers to support our nation’s future infrastructure needs?  Some of you might be able to say, “I played in the ASCE golf tournament this summer, which provides scholarships to aspiring engineer students.”  While this type of financial support is definitely appreciated, aspiring engineers really want to know what engineering is about in a non-academic sense.

I ask that each of you reading this article take the time throughout this school year to have a conversation with a student about engineering.  It doesn’t matter if they are in 3rd grade or in college.  Tell them about what you do, tell them about the types of projects that you have worked on, or show them how engineering and the built environment is all around them.  By doing this, you are mentoring future generations.

There are many definitions of a “mentor” but I adapted the following definition based on a book that I am reading by Joseph Grenny called Influencer. A mentor is someone who “takes personal responsibility for the success of someone else”.  I love this definition because it has nothing to do with race, religion, sex or even age!  My three year-old daughter can be a mentor to my one year-old son.  My wife is my mentor.  And professionally I have had many mentors and try to mentor others as much as possible.

I enjoy taking personal responsibility for the success of others.  As many of you mentors have already discovered, there are many benefits to becoming a mentor.  Beyond the personal satisfaction of seeing those that you mentor succeed, many times those “mentees” make YOU more successful.  As a leader of multi-disciplined engineering teams, it was critical that I “mentored” my team members.  Notice that I did not use the word “lead”.  I am a leader by title but I am a mentor by purpose.  My purpose is to take personal responsibility for the success of each of my team members.  I am a mentor.  If my team members are successful, I will be successful.

There are many opportunities for you as an engineer to reach out and be a mentor, but I have highlighted a few below:

Boy Scouts/Girl Scouts Merit Badges: Did you realize that the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts both have programs designed to expose kids to engineering?  As you read the Boy Scout merit badge requirements, you will notice that there are many needs for these young people to talk to and learn about engineers.  You can reach out to your local scouting communities and offer to help with their requirements.

West Point Bridge Competition: The West Point Bridge Design Contest is a nationwide Internet-based competition intended to provide middle school and high school students with a realistic, engaging introduction to engineering. The contest infrastructure includes a mechanism for organizing and running local bridge design contests in conjunction with the national competition.  You can start trying to organize a local bridge competition this fall that is supported by the United States Military Academy and the American Society of Civil Engineers.

MATHCOUNTS: This is a national enrichment, coaching and competition program that promotes middle school mathematics achievement through grassroots involvement in every U.S. state and territory.  As shown on their website, if you enjoy math (what Engineer doesn’t?!) it is a perfect fit for you to volunteer to help or even coach a team at your local school.

We need to consider that the median working age continues to rise while the retirement age is staying about the same.  This results in our nation facing a critical risk that we will not have enough engineers to recapitalize our infrastructure in the next 50 years.  Even though the economy is very challenging right now, that does not stop you from investing the time and energy to sustain your engineering community for years to come.  Hopefully, you will make the time today to take personal responsibility for the success of someone besides yourself and be a mentor!

In the spirit of this article I have decided to ask college students studying engineering to write a brief article for this blog describing their college engineering experience and posing some questions that they have about engineering careers.

I thought this would give students a chance to get some real career advice from engineers out there in the industry while at the same time give engineers the opportunity to mentor someone (even though it is via blogging comments).

If you know a college student that is interested, please e-mail me at fasanoaj@hotmail.com.  I plan on having one of these posts per month for the next 3 or 4 months.   It will be a great opportunity to pass along knowledge of the engineering profession to future engineers!

Anthony Fasano, P.E., LEED AP, CPESC, CPSWQ, CPC

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