What makes a great mentor? Naval Air Systems Command’s Point Mugu selection for 2019 Mentor of the Year, Mike Herrera, could tell you, but he’d probably rather just show you.

Herrera, a La Mirada, California native and U.S. Naval Academy graduate who joined Naval Air Warfare Center after retiring from the Navy in 2010, lives and breathes teaching and mentoring – or at least that’s what anyone who knows him will tell you.

“As soon as I saw the call for nominations, I knew Mike exemplified the spirit of the award,” said Brian Hill, Collaborative Electronic Warfare Branch supervisor and part of Herrera’s Electromagnetic Maneuver Warfare Collaboration, Experimentation and Integration Team. “He's selfless, and only ever does what's best for the fleet and what's best for his team.”

The EMW CEIT is a perfect example of how Herrera’s mentoring model works. The small, 10-person team is largely comprised of newly hired engineers, some with just a couple of months under their belts. Toss in a couple of more senior engineers as guides, empower them to make real decisions, provide top-cover if something goes wrong, and watch them go.

“I felt like there was an under-appreciated resource in the new engineers,” Herrera said. “They come out of college knowing how to research, able to work and problem-solve in teams, and they’re experienced with the latest technology. They want to succeed and be recognized. How could you NOT use that?”

What they don’t know is the Navy way. They don’t know command structure, they haven’t been exposed to all the policies and ins-and-outs.

“But that’s just stuff,” Herrera said. Instead, he worked on getting them exposed to how the systems they work with are used in the real world. And more importantly, who their end-user is: the warfighter, who in many cases is the same age as the newly graduated engineer.

With EMW CEIT, Herrera created a way to train and mentor new personnel with hands-on projects they could test and learn from in real fleet experiments.

“I wanted to have them make something, put it out in that environment, and learn what they did or didn’t do right. I use the projects as an excuse to train engineers; it’s a different way to invest in them,” he said.

Herrera also noted that getting the team embedded with active Navy crews – whether on ships or with detachments – taught them more about how their work impacts the fleet than any classroom training or daylong tours could ever do.

“When they have to go out and troubleshoot software in a turning aircraft, with all the heat and noise and dangers associated, it’s a real eye-opener,” he added. “The way I look at it is that whatever the team develops, even if it’s not accepted, the real product is their knowledge and experience. It will manifest itself in their future work.”

That hands-on experience, and Herrera’s always-on mentoring style, resonates with his mentees, who call him a “fierce advocate” and a “valuable mentor” who values everyone’s input, regardless of their seniority.

“Mentoring is not a junior/senior relationship; it’s an experience relationship,” Herrera said. “If I have more experience in an area and I share that experience, that’s mentoring, and it’s always symbiotic. Every time I talk with them, it’s a conversation and I learn.”

That mutual respect and relationship building supports more than just project developments, though. It supports people and their commitment to the fleet.

“He found a way to celebrate the struggles … in a way that continues to encourage me to try even harder in the future,” said Phillip Porter, who joined NAWCWD in May 2018 and credits Herrera as a mentor from day one. “I might not have kept working at NAVAIR if it were not for people like Mike.”