Our Central Florida Chapter Women in Safety Excellence (WISE) members partnered with Central Florida Society of Women Engineers to create a speed mentoring professional development opportunity. The event featured nine mentors who each spent 10 minutes sharing their knowledge, skills and experience on a variety of soft-skill topics such as negotiation, nonverbal communication, conflict management or resolution, team building and listening versus talking.
Mentors included:
- Adele Abrams, President of Law Offices of Adele L Abrams (professional member of our Chesapeake and National Capital chapters; WISE Common Interest Group; Construction, Consultants, Management, and Oil, Gas, Mining, and Mineral Resources practice specialties)
- Kelly Bernish, President of Global SHE Solutions (member of our Rocky Mountain and Colorado chapters; WISE Common Interest Group; and Consultants, Public Sector, Utilities and Management practice specialties)
- Chad Burns, EHS Director at Harvard Maintenance (member of our South and Central Florida chapters; and our Healthcare and Management practice specialties)
- Dan Cockerell, Vice President, Magic Kingdom Park (retired), Leadership Consultant
- John McBride, EHS Recruiter at Consentium Search (member of our Central and West Florida chapters; WISE, Blacks in Safety Excellence, Emerging Professionals in OSH and Hispanic Safety Professionals common interest groups; and Environmental, Management and Manufacturing practice specialties)
- Renee Michel, EHS Director at UCF
- Jerry Rivenburg, Leadership Development Manager at Disney University
- Kartika Rodriguez, General Manager at EPCOT
- Anne Spencer, Director at Cushman and Wakefield
“Most mentoring relationships involve an experienced professional working with someone new to the workforce. However, mentoring is invaluable at any career phase, including for those changing careers, working towards certification, returning to the workforce, or looking to expand technical knowledge and experience,” says Heather Earl,
WISE Content Coordinator and a member of our
Central Florida Chapter. “In the case of this speed mentoring event, mentors included experienced industry leaders and influencers both within the OSH profession as well as community and business leaders with no safety responsibilities who shared their expertise specifically around soft skills as opposed to traditional technical OSH knowledge. The quality mentors and speed format were so well received by our members that they are already asking if this will be an annual event.”
The meeting concluded with a text/word cloud reaction exercise and a call to action for participants to implement one or two items talked about at the event in their own workplaces.