Mentoring breakfast offers opportunities for all ranks

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Jay Ponder
  • 908th Airlift Wing
MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. --  Airmen learned more about career fields and how to advance in their careers recently, as HRDC and Company Grade Officer Council sponsored a mentoring breakfast at Maxwell's Riverfront Inn.

The meeting was designed for Airmen to have an opportunity to meet with officer and enlisted leadership and learn of various opportunities available and how to actively pursue them.

Captain Kristin Hill, commander of the 908th MPF, described the event as a way to bridge the gap between Airmen of all ranks.

"We feel it is very beneficial for Airmen to get the opportunity to see how their senior NCOs got where they are, to see how the officers reached their positions," she explained.

The emphasis was on bridging the gap between all generations and all ranks. The meeting was not just open to younger enlisted folks but to all ranks and career fields.

"We can benefit from everybody's background, career, civilian, military and cultural," Hill said.

Six members from the senior enlisted and officer ranks made up the panel for the question-and-answer-session. They described the adjustments they made in their personal lives while working on their careers.

Some of the topics discussed were: "How do you manage your military career while being a single parent;" "How did you end up in your AFSC and what has been the greatest challenge?

Lifestyle can be a factor in advancement and that's what the mentoring is all about, Hill said. The mentors were there to help airmen figure out some of the factors in their lives that may affect their advancement through the ranks.

Some of these factors might include balancing Reserve and civilian careers and being a single parent, and posed a question. Even if you're a two-parent home, how do you adjust your lifestyle to fit into the reserve with your civilian job?

Hill said they would try to have the mentoring breakfasts twice a year. "I encourage people to come out the next time we offer this because it was very enlightening," she said. "It went really well and I encourage folks to take advantage of it the next time we offer it."