in the beginning

My first involvement with mentoring was in 1992 through a corporate program on my job.  A co-worker made me feel guilty for not wanting to get involved.  I even tried to use my children to get me out of it, but once they learned my mentee was not moving in, they told me I had to do it.  Later I realized when my co-worker said I had to get involved because I had made it, that did not mean I had achieved some great financial status; it meant I had put myself in a position to be successful.  I co-managed that program for 8 years: the last year I was no longer an employee but it did not matter.  I was bitten by the mentoring bug!  My first mentee and I are still connected.

After 10 years working in IT as a program analyst  I was laid off.  I decided to follow my passion and switched careers, spending the next nine years with the Maryland Mentoring Partnership (MMP) learning and growing in the mentoring field.  I managed a three year corporate sponsored program to recruit and reward individuals who mentored in a select group of mentoring programs, providing additional training and support to Program Managers.  I created the mentoring hotline for people to call in and get connected with a program, a referral database to track volunteers, and specialized trainings that went beyond the mentoring basics.  I was fortunate enough to work with a very talented gentleman hired to get legislation passed to reduce the cost of background checks. NETCheck (he named it after me) was born out of that work and is the affordable background check option for mentoring programs in the state of Maryland.  Through a partnership with a Washington, DC television station, I created the Mentoring Monday Phone-A-Thon, a recruitment and awareness event that aired every January for 8 years.

opportunity knocks

After MMP I had the opportunity to join an organization that wanted to build their mentoring division.  This position allowed me to put in practice all my local and state training and experience into the national arena.   With the support of dedicated, committed professionals, I was able to build the Concerned Black Men National pilot program into a multimillion dollar National Mentoring Initiative serving over 800  middle school boys in 9 states.

I am a 1989 graduate of Morgan State University with a Bachelor of Science in Information Systems and Sciences.  I was born and raised in the small town of Pittsfield, Massachusetts and am the proud mother of a son and daughter.  To add to my joy, I was blessed with 4 grandchildren. 

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