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The Nevada Traverse Vol.51, No.3, 2024 13Mentor Relationships: How to Support the Next Generation of Surveyors By: Trent J. Keenan, PLSAn abstract of two separate Roundtable Tuesday presentations from 2023Across all professions, mentorship can be a key to career success. In land surveying, mentorship used to be baked in when you found your feet as a young surveyor working as part of your assigned crew.Today, one-man crews are the new norm, and college-educated surveyors sometimes head directly to a desk %u2014 bypassing the field altogether.How can senior surveyors who desire to pay it forward support the next generation of surveyors? For our answers, we drew from a Roundtable Tuesday discussion on mentorship. Below are a few key things you can do to help support the next generation. 1. Be AvailableAt its core, mentorship is about offering support and guidance. It takes time and effort to do this. %u201cThe biggest key to being a successful mentor is to be available. You can have excellent knowledge and communication skills and approachability, but if you%u2019re not present and available it doesn%u2019t do any good,%u201d says Joshua Stice of Dawood Engineering. Whether you are participating in a formal mentorship program or having casual check-ins with a promising employee, the greatest gift you can give is your time.%u201cMy first employer was my first mentor. He said, %u2018I%u2019m here in my chair before seven every morning, and I%u2019m here after five every evening. Anytime you want to ask a question and come talk about projects, I%u2019ll be there,%u201d recalls Rodney Kelly of Etica Group. Fostering an %u201copen door policy%u201d can work wonders for motivated employees seeking to learn and grow.2. Establish Trust & Rapport Some surveyors have unpleasant memories of arriving at a company and having an assigned mentor who had no interest or desire to work with them. %u201cI%u2019ve seen mentoring relationships fail just because they got paired with the wrong person. Maybe they were two wonderful people, but the specific pairing of those two is not going to equal success,%u201d says Tasha Huhta, a surveyor at the Bureau of Land Management.Successful mentor-mentee relationships are based on a foundation of mutual trust. David Kendall, a community development consultant, does this by encouraging his team to ask questions. %u201cI explained to them that me taking the time to teach you this stuff is me investing in you because I believe in you and I want you to succeed here. And I feel like those are the kind of statements that will foster a trusting relationship rather than me just telling them to go pound that nail in the ground over there or yelling at them if they do it wrong,%u201d he says. That said, while compatible personalities are important in mentorship, first impressions can be deceiving.%u201cI learned the most from some of the guys that I had the biggest conflicts within the field %u2014 the ones that almost ran me off and threw me out of the truck. We ended up being really good partners and bonding and working together for a long time after that,%u201d David recalls. Keep in mind that meaningful relationships take time and energy to cultivate, and that working relationship dynamics can change and evolve over time. 3. Identify Your Mentee%u2019s GoalsEach senior surveyor has unique strengths to pass on to the next generation. But in a mentorship relationship, it%u2019s important to determine where your mentee wants to go next. Are they looking for a promotion? A license? A certification? Take time to discuss their goals and identify the steps necessary to achieve them. %u201cWhen I tried to get a raise at a previous company, I was denied because I lacked certain skills. So my boss at the time took the time to help. We had bi-weekly lunch sessions where he would show me different things about legal descriptions, because that%u2019s what I was lacking,%u201d says Adrian Trespando of Guida Surveying. Helping your mentee through specific hurdles can help them quickly achieve concrete goals that impact their career for the better. Similarly, Rob McMillan, a former surveyor with the California Department of Transportation, had the opportunity to participate in a statewide mentorship program at Caltrans.%u201cI was assigned an engineer who was trying to move up. I had no idea who they were and had never met them before, but I was able to point them in the right direction and helped them CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE u