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In this series, we present ideas, opinions, and, sometimes, ramblings of the author. The opinions are not necessarily those of the Association of Environmental & Engineering Geologists or any other organization or entity.
The Gift of Mentorship Deborah Green Deborah Green has 35 years of professional experience, and has been a self-employed consultant for 25 of those years. Now, semi-retired, she’s written a novel whose protagonist is an engineering geologist working on a dam with a problematic foundation. Her website, www.geologistwriter.com, is populated with short essays on geology, the natural world, and our interactions with them. She is a long-time, active member of AEG, joining in 1982 as a graduate student. Deborah was awarded the Floyd T. Johnston Service Award in 2005, and traveled the country meeting students as the 2018–19 Richard H. Jahns Distinguished Lecturer.
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Annual Meeting, where students are paired with professionals who help them navigate their first conference. While Association meetings are great places to learn and network, they can be overwhelming to newcomers. A meeting mentor can provide guidance and introductions, so students maximize the benefits from their attendance. Though this type of mentoring relationship may only last for the length of the conference, their positive impacts can last throughout a student’s education and subsequent career. Both formal and informal mentoring can lead to great outcomes. I think we can draw a distinction between teachers and mentors. Both are important, and a teacher may also become a mentor. But for me, teachers have come to provide needed lessons, and then gone, while my mentors have endured, still inspiring me years, and even decades, after I came to know them. Older now, with enough professional and life experience in my wake, I like to think I can be that kind of mentor to others. Again, it’s not been in a formal setting, but some of my younger geologist friends tell me that our connection has nurtured them, both at work and in life. I could not ask for a better legacy from my time as a professional geologist. If someone has encouraged you, helped you to fulfill your potential, or even if you only wish they had, when an opportunity arises for you to do the same, please give the gift of mentorship.
have never been in a formal mentoring relationship, as in having a mentor assigned on the job for instance, but I most assuredly have mentors, both professionally and personally. One or two are geologists, more are not. No matter their titles, these mentors changed my life for the better, some subtly, others in striking ways. One encouraged me to start a business, then inspired me not to give up on it after my partner in the practice died in an accident. That move altered the trajectory not only of my career, but of my life. Another gave me the confidence to sail my boat singlehanded, fulfilling a dream. She could not do that for me, instead she made me believe that I could do it for myself, along with handing me a few tools for my real and metaphorical toolkits. Mentors have influenced me most by modeling Decades after I worked for him in industry, Gary Long is still a valued behaviors, rather than giving advice or imparting techmentor. nical knowledge—how they pursued projects, jobs, and even dreams; how they managed subordinates, providing autonomy and expecting self-responsibility; how they faced professional or personal challenges with perseverance, curiosity, and sometimes audacity; how they didn’t think they were too old to achieve a goal, or I was too young to (way back when). These relationships grew organically as I observed the people who would become my mentors moving through their careers, or the world, in ways I admired and aspired to, and still do. I was lucky they were open to sharing their ideas, and their ideals. And yes, also their wise counsel, but that would come later, also organically, after the relationship had developed. This is not to say that mentoring in a formal My dear friend and mentee, Jennifer Bauer, and I hiking together in Denali National setting doesn’t work—it can and does. One Park before the 2011 AEG Annual Meeting in Anchorage, Alaska example would be the mentoring program for AEG’s Winter 2021
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