Reflections on the Gentle Art of Teaching and Mentoring Abstract

Sad to say, it is highly likely that you missed out on some essential information during your educational journey. This is true regardless of your chosen profession; whether you are a professor, or work in an industrial or government lab, or manage folks doing R&D, or if you started your own company, or even if you decided to punt engineering altogether and take up professional skydiving, or sword-fighting, or coal-walking. You see, no matter what career path you settled on, you still require two essential skills for long-term success. Skills which, alas, they do not have classes for in school. Things they never bothered to tell you about, things kept hidden from your view. Curious what those two essential skills are? Okay, here goes: 1) You must be able to teach, and 2) You must be able to mentor. And you will need to be able to do them both very well. Very, very well. Skeptical? Never fear, I will convince of the truth of my claim. And cheer up, I am here to spill the beans, to give you the scoop, to make good on what your schooling conveniently omitted! I will wax poetic on the gentle art of teaching and mentoring, and do it using a fun and easy approach. And I will share some of the insights I have gleaned over my 30+ year career as an industrial researcher and professor. Come join the fun!