HONORABLE MENTION: "Developing Tomorrow's Future"
Robert Travia, United Technologies, mentor

My first experience with MentorNet began as an opportunity to participate that came across our corporate intranet. I have always enjoyed sharing experiences and viewed this as a more formal mechanism to meet new people that were proactive in learning how they can develop themselves to be better prepared for their future. MentorNet clearly exceeded my expectations for educational, professional, and personal growth for myself, and hopefully for the many wonderful individuals I have had the pleasure of working with. Please allow me to explain this truly win-win experience...

What I had not expected was the significant impact the relationship would have on me. Professionally, I not only found a source of eager talent from which any organization would benefit, but also found a new opportunity to network myself. Today's protégé's are tomorrow's leaders. ~ Robert Travia

I anticipated that my first official relationship with Linh Truong would lead to conversations about academic and work-life balance issues. Our conversations raged from education-specific (GPA, graduate school...) to leadership topics (leading teams, co-op jobs...) to developing business savvy (foreign languages, international travel, etc.). At one point in our conversation, Linh described a decision she was contemplating to switch majors into business from engineering. "I am confused and uncertain if changing majors is what I really want, or if the reasons that I stated above are valid reasons to change." It was not my role to tell Linh what to do, but rather what, in my humble opinion, may be some considerations and potential pitfalls. Linh's response was kind. "Your email was very helpful. It gave me a lot of insight, and a lot of things to consider when making my decisions." This was quickly followed by her decision "I am learning a lot in my management classes, however, after much thought, I think that I will be staying with aerospace engineering." This relationship also led me to offer Linh a co-op experience at Pratt & Whitney that was very successful for both of us. In additional to her core role in our organization, we worked on developing business relationships, her résumé, and her five and ten year goals and objectives.

What I had not expected was the significant impact the relationship would have on me. Professionally, I not only found a source of eager talent from which any organization would benefit, but also found a new opportunity to network myself. Today's protégé's are tomorrow's leaders. Having access to such a continual source of talent has also increased the value I offer, and hence my ability to better manage my organization both within and outside of my immediate span of control. Linh recommended Joohan Song who replaced Linh when she went back to school. Joohan also made significant contributions to our organization and again allowed us a win-win opportunity.

From an educational perspective, this program could not have been better aligned to meet my needs. The best way to learn something is to teach it. Throughout the various relationships I learned that I had a considerable interest in the relationships of individuals in an organization and how individuals organize and manage themselves. The iterative process of mentoring inspired me to continue my education from (the BS in Materials Engineering I had) the MBA in International Business (I was working on at the time) to a Ph.D. in Organizational Management. The academic decision to pursue my Ph.D. was clearly a professional life-changing event for me as it depicted a commitment to pursue organizational rather than engineering-specific roles. I am actively working my dissertation and anticipate completion by the end of this spring. I am very excited and grateful to have the opportunity to work with such a program as MentorNet that highlights the importance of developing tomorrow's future in our business relationships. I have also been planning writing a book specifically addressing the college to corporate audience and will have an entire chapter dedicated to mentoring and its importance in allowing professionals the data to make the right decisions themselves.

I am still an active member of MentorNet and recently was paired with a young woman named Kristin Coyle. This is one of many mentoring relationships I have and cherish today hoping that by sharing my experiences, successes and challenges, that I may allow someone else the opportunity to succeed more rapidly and smoothly. I am a mentor and a protégé myself and have mentors both within and external to my organization. In addition to my academic decision, I have changed corporate divisions and decided to pursue my organizational management interest in a more professional role along my career path. Unfortunately due to continual changing of email addresses and my movements between corporate divisions, I have lost contact with some of the great folks like Linh and Joohan. It would be wonderful to hear how they are doing today and to see where their careers are. I ask each of the protégé's I work with to create a five and ten year plan. This plan they own and can change at any time, but I stress the importance of having goals and to continually strive to achieve them. Even if I am not selected as a finalist, I would be very interested in allowing MentorNet to share my desire to catch up with and provide my current information with my former protégés. Thank you for the opportunity to share my wonderful experiences with MentorNet. Your program has truly had a positive impact upon my personal, educational and professional life and I look forward to continuing this relationship in the future.