Skip to main content

Mentor: Kevin Beverly, Executive Vice President, Social & Scientific Systems, Inc.

Another feature of this blog is bringing you advice and perspectives from people who mentor, by answering 3 questions:

 

What are mentees looking for?

What 1 piece of advice do you give every mentee you work with?

Why are you interested in mentoring?

 

I’m inaugurating this feature with a friend and colleague, Kevin Beverly who is Executive Vice President at Social & Scientific Systems, Inc. (where I also work).

 

Years ago, Kevin founded the Mildred Beverly Memorial Family Fund, in honor of his mother, to support the education needs of underprivileged youth in Dorchester County, Maryland. But he doesn’t just fund scholarships. He also gives his time to innovative after-school programs that help Montgomery County teenagers gain the skills they need to succeed.

 

So here are Kevin’s answers…..(and any errors in transcribing them are mine and mine alone!)

 

What are mentees looking for?

 

Affirmation.

 

Many of the kids I mentor are bright and have good ideas but their cohorts may be a stumbling block. These kids want to check in with someone to get an answer to: Is what I’m thinking about realistic and is it appropriate?

 

What 1 piece of advice do you give every mentee you work with?

 

Kevin couldn’t limit himself to just 1 piece. Here’s what he says:

-Do your homework. Know what you’re talking about.

-Don’t let others waste your time.

-There are 2 ways to approach a problem to get a result – the easy way and the right way. You get to decide which you will choose.

 

Why are you interested in mentoring?

 

In 7th grade, I tried every day to get my cousin to go to school – and he usually wouldn’t. Eventually, he dropped out. But I saw talent in him – and a need – and I tried to address it. That is still what drives me – helping to see that someone’s talent can be used.

Posted via email from suegriffey's posterous

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mentor: Barbara Rawlins, Monitoring and Evaluation Team Leader, Maternal and Child Survival Program

Another feature of this blog is bringing you advice and perspectives from people who mentor, by answering 3 questions. Here are  Barbara Rawlins ’  responses: What are mentees looking for? ·  Career guidance ·  Technical advice ·  Moral support ·  Advice on how to negotiate politically-sensitive or controversial situation What 1 piece of advice do you give every mentee you work with? Figure out what they want to do (in the long term) and what steps they can take to get there Why are you interested in mentoring? To support younger colleagues, especially women, to help attain their career goals
21 comments
Read more

A mentor is like a mirror: Even a senior (expert) needs - and wants - mentoring #mentor (SueMentors.Blogspot.com)

I haven’t been posting for the past 3 months because of an extremely busy time. But I have been mentoring – and in ways that were surprising to me. In July-September, we at Social & Scientific Systems (SSS) were unexpectedly were facing the sooner-than-expected project close-out, and it meant that several staff needed to be looking for new jobs. I wasn’t surprised that some of the staff – mostly those still early in their careers – were asking for my help in updating their resumes. I was more surprised to have two very senior and experienced professionals ask for my help. When they gave me their resumes to review before we met, I realized that both were examples of why a mentor can be useful, no matter how far along you are in your career. One had an illustrious and varied career and many qualifications prior to coming to SSS two years ago. But her resume read like someone who had just finished graduate school. She was very detailed in listing all the things she did (both in her SS
2 comments
Read more

A Decade of SueMentors Mentoring!

The just-finishing 2019 marks a decade of my “formal” SueMentors mentoring. As I reflected on the decade over the last months of 2019, I realized I have learned so much – but haven’t always let mentees and other supporters know that. So I went back to my program-evaluation career and put together an infographic to summarize the 10 years. This shows you what I’ve learned from mentees, the ways mentees have shaped  my delivery of short- and longer-term mentoring, and how I’ve been able to expand from 1-to-1 mentoring to more 1-to-many methods that meet people where they are. Many thanks to the decade of mentees I’ve worked with directly: Mentees who connected through a mentoring program or a “self-referral” or a referral to me from someone else S everal of you who “discovered” me from an online source S ome who I’ve met in person at conferences or by happenstance (like waiting for ride-shares) T hose who have re-contacted me And a special thanks to Kristina Davis,
4 comments
Read more