Katy Dickinson

Western Pacific Herald Going on Caboose

For the third year, our home will soon be hosting the Silicon Valley Lines model train club Christmas party. To prepare for the event, I have finished painting the bay window markings on WP668, our backyard caboose. Tomorrow, John is going to mount the Western Pacific herald on the metal plate on the side of WP668. John wants to preserve the etched shadow of the original WP logo on the original herald plate, so he lacquered it. Today, he had a 21-1/2" x 23-1/2" steel plate cut (the size of the WP decal we bought from the Portola Railroad Museum), then painted the new plate black. Tomorrow, John will tack weld the new plate over the old and then mount the decal. WP668 will once again display the Western Pacific herald!

Here a small size reproduction of the WP logo and a current photo of WP668:

Images Copyright 2007-2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 09:51PM Dec 04, 2008 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  | 

SEED Mentor Matching Cycle Starts

Yesterday, all 109 SEED and PreSEED Engineering mentoring program participants turned in the final versions of their 10-name Mentor Wish Lists. Also yesterday, Tanya Jankot cleaned up the data, then she and I decided on who was the top priority potentially available mentor for each new program participant, then I sent out the first 65 personal email requests to potential mentors. Today, I sent out the remaining 44 email requests. I have been getting many enthusiastic responses from potential mentors. Four have already accepted mentees (2 GSS SEEDs and 2 PreSEEDs).

Mentor request metrics:

• There were 442 unique potential mentors requested on the 109 Mentor Wish Lists.
• 14 potential mentors had more than one request at #1 priority.
• 65 potential mentors had 5 or more participants request them.
• 6 had more than ten requests.
• 14 was the highest number of requests for any potential mentor.

Unless the mentor is very experienced or says they already know the mentee well, I ask them to have a pre-match discussion by phone or in person to be sure it is a good fit. I expect many more matches soon. If experience holds true, it will take three to six weeks to match everyone in both terms. There will be very few matches toward the end of this month because of Sun's winter break.

Mentor matching metrics:

• In most terms since SEED started in 2001, about 80% of participants were matched with one of their top four priority choices. The remainder were matched with a Mentor lower down on their Mentor Wish List.
• About 70% of SEED mentors are executives (Directors, Principal Engineers, Fellows, or Vice Presidents) in any term. More senior mentees tend to be matched with more senior mentors. For example, in the 2008-2009 terms, the Recent Hire term had 65% executive mentors but the Established Staff term had 84% executive mentors.
• In the 2008-2009 terms, 77% of mentor-mentee pairs were working at a distance, another state or country from each other.
• Over 90% of SEED participants indicate satisfaction or strong satisfaction with the program in their quarterly reports.
• 100% of participants get matched with a mentor they requested.

More?
More information on the SEED worldwide Engineering mentoring program is available at http://research.sun.com/SEED/

Posted at 09:24PM Dec 04, 2008 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |