About our guest author: Melody Starya Mobley’s experiences as the first black woman serving as a forester for the USDA are remarkable: both for the firsts she embodies and for the years of abuse and oppression she experienced within that system.
Now, Melody shares her personal stories to create positive change for groups historically excluded from accessing American natural spaces.
With the few federal protections that exist currently being stripped away, it’s more important than ever for stories like these to be told. Learn more about Melody and watch her documentary The Dark White Forest on her website at starya.org.
Image credit: Kirth Bobb
Mentors are critically important in our professional and personal lives. They offer information, seasoned perspective, physical and emotional support, protection, and often a more efficient, direct pathway to success.
While support and protection from colleagues and supervisors are vital for a female of color in the White male-dominated profession of forest management, it’s crucial to remember that everything a mentorship can provide is important.
How mentors benefit from mentoring others
The most effective of these role models help us successfully navigate the very complex professional and personal issues that often occur in our lives. But the mentor benefits, too:
- Successfully guiding others in a mentorship relationship fine-tunes leadership and management skills.
- Helping the mentee grow and succeed is very satisfying and can freshen the mentor’s sense of career and job satisfaction.
- Teaching and/or guiding others requires the mentor to become more expert in professional knowledge, skills, and abilities.
- Senior managers learn what newer individuals value most in their work and personal lives, helping to reduce turnover that risks losing skills and investments.
Mentoring Martha
I have a long history of mentorship in my profession and related fields. I served as a mentor to Martha J. Pollard, who became the first African American female law enforcement special agent in the USDA Forest Service.
I met Martha while she was leading a tour at a historic site near Washington, D.C. I was so impressed with how professional, intelligent, and articulate she was and so disappointed with how low her grade was in the USDI Park Service, that I took her aside and asked her if she would consider working for the USDA Forest Service.
Martha said yes. I vowed that moment to secure a position for her in the agency and do everything I could to make her transition successful. I was always available to her all the way through to her recent retirement. Serving as one of Ms. Pollard’s mentors was among my greatest professional and personal achievements. Not only did I gain experience and hone my skills in high-level personnel negotiation and tradeoffs, I also developed more political clout within some parts of the USDA Forest Service—just not enough to effectively help myself at the end of my career.
Mentors must also remain mentees
At 68 years of age, I still value mentorships and have several mentors in my life—as well as offering my own mentorship whenever I can.
I recently added a new mentor, a social worker who guides me through applying for county programs for seniors. One program makes my house more accessible with ramps and grab bars. Another provides membership and activities at a senior center, so I feel less isolated.
Now that I’m no longer with the USDA Forest Service, I found myself the best mentor I’ve ever had in my personal or professional life, American Green founder Chris Gibbons. Mr. Gibbons has a plethora of diverse skills that are critical to facilitating my success and happiness in business and personal endeavors as a retired federal employee. I never learned many of the skills necessary to succeed in private business, so his expertise has guided me through several situations where vendors and others have tried to take advantage of me. Without a doubt, this is the best mentorship I’ve ever experienced.
Check out Melody’s first post in this series, “Mentors for Life: Part 1 – Benefits for the Mentee,” on the AGC blog.
Read more of Melody’s writings
on the American Green blog.