By Vicky Falcón
NAVAIR Public Affairs Office

Mentor participation will be the key to success for a new NAVAIR mentoring process and Web tool being unveiled this week. Experienced NAVAIR employees who are willing to give about three hours of their time each month can create fulfilling partnerships for personal growth and development.

The new NAVAIR Mentoring Program, introduced June 13, is the result of a NAVAIR AIRSpeed Green Belt project. It will combine multiple independent mentoring initiatives from throughout the organization (both military and civilian) into one new process.

The program also directly supports a NAVAIR Command Guidance objective to build leaders at all levels through strengthening and deploying NAVAIR leadership, mentoring and supervisory development programs. It also supports a CNO priority to develop 21st century leaders throughout the Navy.

Mentoring is a developmental relationship that partners an experienced person (mentor) with a less experienced person (protégé). By sharing the knowledge and insights learned through years of experience, the civilian or military mentor offers the protégé insight and guidance to do their job more effectively or to progress in their career.

“There is no specific requirement or prerequisite needed to be a mentor,” said Donna Salmons, NAVAIR Mentoring Program Manager. Though, she says, there will be surveys to follow-up on mentors and protégés to ensure a fulfilling relationship for both parties.

According to Salmons, being a mentor has numerous benefits, including sharpening management, leadership and interpersonal skills; expanding professional networks; and increasing personal satisfaction. NAVAIR personnel interested in pursuing a mentor relationship can register using the new Web tool link below.

Protégés gain knowledge and personal growth from a mentor relationship, along with assistance with career planning and an expanded professional network. Potential protégés will be able to sign up using the new Web tool early July .

“Having a suitable supply of mentors is critical to the success of the program,” said Salmons. “Without enough active mentors, it can cause an overload on those who are involved.”

“Our goal is to increase participation in mentoring from the less than one percent of the employee population who participate now, to 40% by 2008,” she said.

Within NAVAIR, multiple career development programs require employees and interns to participate in mentoring. The new mentoring process resides outside of these formal, professional development programs.

“This project integrates and streamlines multiple mentoring initiatives within NAVAIR, including AD, WD, Headquarters and TSD,” said Terri Lemerise, a NAVAIR AIRSpeed Black Belt who worked on the project.

“We’ve never been able to provide anything like this Command-wide before,” she said. “The new Web tool will offer the protégé a mentor matching component that will suggest a list of up to five mentors who most closely match their mentoring goals.”

Protégés can also use the tool to peruse mentor bios to find a suitable mentor, she added.

Both mentors and protégés are encouraged to review one of the multiple training opportunities available before commencing the program. Guidance is provided for those who are new to mentoring, as well as those who have been in previous mentoring relationships. Navy Knowledge Online (NKO) is also a credible mentoring training source.

According to Salmons, there are quite a few mentoring relationships within NAVAIR already. “We encourage folks who are already in a mentoring partnership to utilize the new toolkit and Web tool to register their partnership and use the information we provide to make it even more successful.”

“This program is creating a mentoring culture within NAVAIR,” said Lemerise. “We’re not only fulfilling the new guidance put out by VADM Venlet, but we’re also meeting CNO guidance to develop leadership throughout the Navy.”

Proposed legislation could eventually require mentoring relationships for some federal employees, as well. A new training bill (S-967) introduced by Senator Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, would require federal managers to mentor new supervisors and receive training on how to mentor employees.

For more information about the NAVAIR Mentoring Program, contact Donna Salmons, 301-342-5096. To register as a mentor on the new mentoring Web tool, go to https://mynavair.navair.navy.mil/mentoring.