[caption id="attachment_1389" align="aligncenter" width="700" caption="SF Mentorship Program Kick off"][/caption]Follow up on a previous post…
A couple of weeks ago I was in San Fran to kick off the AIA SF mentorship program. I pleased to share with a room of 50+ architects, the history of laddership and the importance of mentoring in this economy.
What I was surprised to learn in my visit was that the laddership model I nonchalantly started 8 years ago and turned over to AIA Seattle to become a chapter-wide program is now a national model for mentoring in many AIA chapters across the country.
In 2008, AIA SF revamped their mentoring program (previously the typical matching of sage mentor to newly graduated intern) by using my book (The Survival Guide to Architectural Internship) as a guide. The two primary concepts used was the laddered mentoring model described in the book and a method for selecting mentors that I have coined “speed mentoring” (based on the speed dating model). The AIA SF Mentorship Committee (yes, they actually have a very active and dedicated committee) led by Alex Tsai, Gene Pena, and formerly Jason Dale Pierce (who has since relocated to St. Louis) has created a robust program that is now considered a national best practice. Let me just I say, I was a tad bit proud to learn this.
Laddership programs now exist at AIA chapters in Seattle, San Francisco, Bozeman, Phoenix, Dallas, Kansas, and Austin. If you know of programs at other chapters, please write in.
Follow link to read AIA Best Practices article on Laddership written a couple of years ago.
Thanks to: Event sponsors - Pollack Architecture, Simpson Gumpertz & Heger, SMW & Associates, and Woo Architecture for making my trip possible. And to George of Builders Booksource for selling my books at the event. And to Alex Tsai, Daniel Perez, Archie Woo, Aaron Baumbach, and Amelia Mendez of the Mentorship Committee for the fellowship in the rain afterwards!
[caption id="attachment_1390" align="aligncenter" width="700" caption="Mentorship Committee at Jitane"][/caption]