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Internal mentorship program promotes career advancement

By Haley Dunaway, DEVCOM Aviation & Missile Center Public AffairsJanuary 21, 2025

REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. (Jan. 21, 2025)– Mentorship isn’t a one-time thing, it’s a whole career effort.

In the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation & Missile Center Systems Readiness Directorate, it’s become a one-stop shop.

“I’ve had mentors my entire career,” shared Dr. Yolanda Powell-Friend, SRD’s acting director. “My first mentor, Marilyn, asked me if I only had one mentor. I told her yes ma’am. She then said I needed five.”

Mentee Kyle Medendorp, Mentor Matthrew Rhodes, Mentor Julian Olander, Mentee Mariah Burdette
Mentee Kyle Medendorp, Mentor Matthrew Rhodes, Mentor Julian Olander, Mentee Mariah Burdette (Photo Credit: Haley Dunaway) VIEW ORIGINAL

But how does one find a mentor? In their careers, many try to find someone experienced within their division or competency, but SRD takes responsibility for their employees’ career and assigns new entry level employees a mentor.

“New interns are paired with a mentor, we don’t leave them an option,” says Dr. Powell-Friend. “We design our mentorship program to focus on all phases of what I like to call the employee life cycle, right from the time you onboard to the time when you outboard for retirement.”

Within the Onboarding Mentorship Program, a mentor assists the new employee with all the details of taking on the new job, whether getting familiar with the project or system they’re working on, or as an example, providing insight and information by asking the new hire if they’ve filled out forms for government insurance.

Mentorship isn’t just for new hires, within SRD there are several different mentorship focuses: the Director and You Program, the Reverse Mentorship Program, the Chat and Chew Program, and the Walk with Me Program.

Mentee Kyle Medendorp, Mentor Matthew Rhodes
Mentee Kyle Medendorp, Mentor Matthew Rhodes (Photo Credit: Haley Dunaway) VIEW ORIGINAL

The Director and You mentorship program occurs after you onboard, the employee has an opportunity to meet the SRD Director.

“How neat is that?” said Powell-Friend with a smile. “Most people start, and it is years later before they even have any interaction with the director. It’s important that we, as leaders, have the opportunity at that first encounter to make sure the employee knows how important they are to our workforce. I think we miss that in the government often by not arranging that intentional engagement and taking the opportunity to make that first impression.”

Then there’s the Reverse Mentoring Program, which allows our new hires to refresh our seasoned workforce members. This type of mentorship provides a new look at old processes to see if they really are working the most efficiently, or maybe the new-hire right out of college has a new technique to tackle a problem more seamlessly than current methods.

“They reverse-mentor our established employees and they create a relationship value while providing the directorate with an additional capability we didn’t have. I think this is a desired program when it comes to new technologies.”

Another mentorship program within the directorate is called the Chat and Chew, which allows employees to engage with the SRD leadership to talk about what they’re seeing in the organization, suggest improvements they think can be made and identify what they think leadership can do differently among other functions. It happens over lunch or maybe a cup of coffee.

“Sometimes when we become senior leaders it’s easy to get disconnected from the rest of the workforce, so it’s important to figure out how to stay connected to increase your throughput. The only way to increase our throughput is to connect and talk to our employees.”

Mentee Mariah Burdette, Mentor Julian Olander
Mentee Mariah Burdette, Mentor Julian Olander (Photo Credit: Haley Dunaway) VIEW ORIGINAL

The Walk with Me program allows members of SRD workforce to have visibility of the challenges that the SRD leadership is tackling.

"They’re attending staff meetings, associate directors, deputy director meetings … they’re going to gain insight into directorate concerns would not be visible to regular workspace.”

Powell-Friend said that the program is the backbone for organizational growth and building future leaders.

“Employees can understand how the organization works: how the budget is executed and understand our rates. It helps carry the message when leadership says they can’t do something — it's not just that leadership doesn’t want to fund a specific program, this individual saw it with their own eyes — we just don’t have the resources available.”

There is also an Outboarding Mentorship program, which is designed to pair individuals retiring with those who have researched the process so they can understand their next steps and have questions answered by those who can help them.

Mentorship is work, for both the mentor and the mentee. A mentor can set up meetings and introduce their mentee to individuals within the organization, but Powell-Friend emphasized, “it’s up to the mentee to embrace the opportunities the mentor is trying to provide. The mentee has to do the work.”

If the mentee does, the work they will be prepared for the opportunity.

“Marilyn and others helped position me in places where I had the opportunity. That’s what mentorship does: it helps you grow and develop you as an individual as well as a professional.”

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As part of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, a subordinate of the U.S. Army Futures Command, DEVCOM Aviation & Missile Center serves as the Army’s primary center for developing, integrating, demonstrating and sustaining Army aviation and missile systems. For more than six decades, DEVCOM AvMC has delivered cutting-edge aviation and missile technologies and it continues to drive the advancement of future capabilities to ensure war-winning future readiness and battlefield dominance.