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Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon
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By Aimee McAuliffe, PLSO Exec. Secretary
The Power of Mentorship
From the PLSO Office
I
am who I am because people invested in me. As
a recent college graduate, I wasn’t someone that
automatically knew how to navigate office politics
or communicate properly on project expectations. I
didn’t know there was a strength in asking questions
and I most certainly didn’t know how to sell myself
in an interview. I was, however, a hard worker,
fast learner and, most importantly, I cared about
everything I worked on. What is the difference in
these two lists that, when considered together made
up one person? One is learned and the other innate.
But the ideal professional can’t really exist solely on
one set of values. You may be the most sophisticated
person with enough charm to sell ice to an Eskimo,
but if you don’t really care about your work or have
the willingness to put the time in, people notice. What
happens when people find that out about you? The
answer is: they find you annoying and are not particu-
larly eager to work with you.
For me, it took a lot of mistakes and incredibly
difficult bosses to find someone that really took me
under their wing. When I say difficult boss, I mean
everything from conducting all phone calls on speaker
phone with their door open, at octave 9 (we’re talking
even their dating coach) to not communicating how
to do something because short-term thinking decided
that it was just easier to do it themselves. What was
I doing there? How was I going to do it better the
next time?
When I met my mentor, I didn’t realize how important
she would become to me. It was a grueling two-years
working for her. Not because she was broadcast-
ing a medical diagnosis or dissecting her latest It’s
Just Lunch encounter via megaphone (that was the
boss before her), but because she expected a lot
from me. Sometimes I fell down and sometimes I
flew above the tree line. Either way I learned. The
experience change me! I still remember the time,
upon leaving that job and returning to Oregon, when
I had just completed my first large-scale event on
my own and emailed her to say thank you. She was
quite surprised. Her response was: “Thank you for
your sweet words, but you’re giving me credit for
something you did entirely on your own merit and
hard-work.” Though that may technically be true, it’s
not entirely true now is it?
That is the power of a mentor.
No matter who you talk to in
the surveying profession, they
will all tell you the same thing.
We are facing serious issues when it comes to our
future work-force. Not because they aren’t smart. It’s
because they aren’t
there
. Attrition is outpacing our
graduation and licensure rates. School programs are
facing closure for lack of enrollment and are looking
to us to communicate and support our needs as a
profession. Graduates are getting frustrated with the
process of becoming licensed. It’s time to call in the
cavalry! We have problems to solve folks and we need
our professional community to help solve them.
One such program that has been slowly gaining
momentum is the Mentorship Program. PLSO serves
as a conduit between students and associates looking
for mentors. Past Chairman Lee Spurgeon has kept
this on a slow burn for the past few years and we are
now working towards making it a vital program.
Research out of North Carolina State University states
that “young people who have had mentors are more
likely to find work early in their careers that gives
them more responsibility and autonomy—ultimately
putting them on a path to more financially and
personally rewarding careers.” While we all can relate
to “show me the money,” the truth is, intrinsic values
are ranked high when choosing and staying on a
particular career path. It is my belief, that mentoring
is a small step towards our current workforce
dilemma and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate
Lee Spurgeon and the Education Goals and Action
Committee for listening to the needs of our schools.
Winston Churchill once said, “we make a living by
what we get, we make a life by what we give.” I
couldn’t agree with this more. The most successful,
happy people I know are involved in their community
or giving a part of themselves in one way or another.
The only way we can make the Mentorship Program
a success is through participation. That means, we
need you! We need you to sign up for whatever
commitment you are capable of keeping. Not only
are you helping build the future of surveying, but you
could be grooming a potential employee.
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