Mentorship Matters

Devin Giles (DG): Steve, when you were in college, did you have a mentor? And if you did, you mind sharing a little bit about it? 

Steve Goodman (SG): “My mentor was Douglas C. Keister, a senior professor in my undergrad program, and so that was somebody who I looked to for advice and went to regularly. When I went to grad school, I ended up being his teaching assistant, so he continued to be a mentor to me.” 

DG: How did you become a mentor for Bauer? 

SG: “I serve on the Bauer College Board, and they asked the board members if they were interested in being part of the mentorship program. I had done a little bit of informal mentoring before and I thought it would be something that would be interesting, and in a way, give back and hopefully be of assistance to graduate students, especially since I was a graduate student at Bauer.” 

DG: What three words would you use to describe Bauer students and why? 

SG: “Hard-working, innovative, and awesome. And you, you exemplify that. But I've also hired several students out of Bauer in recent years and one has been with us for 11 years, and they've been awesome."

DG: What do you hope is the most important take away I learned from your mentorship? 

SG: “Well, I think when you're in especially a corporate environment or whether it's corporate, government, nonprofit learning to navigate as you progress in your career, some organizations are better at mentoring internally and helping develop their future leaders. It's easy in a large organization, especially, but even in a small organization, it's easy to get frustrated or not know what the path to progress is.  

When I graduated, I went to work for Ernst & Young. Now, and in hindsight, I probably wished I'd stayed longer. I was there just under two years, and I think what I learned there, and the professionalism I learned there and the technical skills, would have been healthier for me to stay longer and really benefit more from some of the development that they had to offer that I didn't really know how to access. 

And I really did not have anybody specific mentoring me there, so I hope to help you or any of the mentor mentees along the way.” 

DG: So had you ever thought about being a mentor prior to becoming a mentor at Bauer? 

SG: “I thought about it, and I've been in some informal mentorship relationships, but I hadn't really been in anything with the business school. And so, when they suggested that I thought, you know, that would be a good thing to do.” 

DG: And why would you say it is important for you to be a mentor? 

SG: “It goes back to giving back. I've learned some things in my career. I left the big corporate world 36 years ago to start my firm, but as we grow, I see the importance of leadership development and staff development. I'm more acutely aware of it than I ever was before. 

And so, the things that I've taken 36 years to learn, if I can take some benefit of some of the things that we're now doing in our organization and help others that are navigating other organizations, that that's what I was hoping to do.” 

DG: Is there anything else you’d like to add?  

SG: “I have one thing that that I don't know that we've talked about, but I know internally in the firm as we mentor people is one of the things with young professionals, or really with anybody, in their career or in life is you have to have a certain level of confidence. If you're not confident, it's hard to kind of stay on a straight path. It's also hard for people to trust that you know what you are talking about.

Confidence is important, overconfidence is a huge risk and a detriment, and sometimes there's people who become overconfident, and it shows, and people find those people harder to trust because they appear overconfident.  

The other thing is sometimes when you're overconfident, you're not willing to spend enough time listening to others and really getting input from others. It sometimes leads to mistakes, so being confident without overconfidence that’s the balance that I think is really, really important.” 

SG: What were you looking for in a mentor, or did you know? 

DG: When I first saw the application and the information about the mentorship program, I didn’t think I had an idea about what exactly I was looking for. I guess the only thing I didn't know is that I was looking for someone with professional life experiences that could just kind of share wisdom, knowledge, insight of things I may not be at a point in my life to kind of recognize yet.” 

SG: Do you think having a mentor is an advantage? 

DG: “Yes. I think a mentor is in a lot of ways like a cheat code to life. If you listen — the big thing is if you listen.  

It's an advantage to have a mentor because there's things I see that I couldn't see before. You don't know what you don't know. 

And so sometimes people with experience or insight can provide you information that will help calm you down or help you reaffirm kind of the path you're thinking about or decision that you're trying to make or work towards.” 

SG: What has been the biggest take away you've learned so far? 

DG: “The biggest thing is patience. 

I think a lot of times we have all these goals and steps that we want to hit, and you know, going to grad school is one of those. And like, what's next? How can I grow? How can I progress? 

Sometimes it's not always linear, and you're not always going to have the answer to what's the next growth path or growth step. It's just being patient and really understanding what it is you don't like to do or what it is you do like to do and being aware of potential opportunities that may arise. 

Just be inquisitive and curious.”  

SG: After you graduate, do you hope to be a mentor yourself? 

DG: “Yes. For sure.” 

SG: Why would that be important to you? 

DG: “The biggest thing is I don't make progress in my life without others. Whether it's someone providing a little five-minute talk here or there or professor after class, my life has changed, and I've made pivots as a result of informal and formal mentorships and sharing knowledge is important, you can't hold it in.  

If there's anything I can share to help someone improve their life or improve their insight or whatever it may be, I'll take the opportunity to do that.” 

Naomi Ekine (NE): Why is it important for you to be a mentor?  

Richard Waldman (RW): “The way I look at it is when I was your age, things like this did not exist. There was no such thing as a mentoring program. There was no one I could turn to just to learn their experience. 

There wasn’t even a professional in finance whose name I was given to speak to. Literally nothing.  

So, my attitude today is, hey, I have, you know, 40 years of experience being a large corporate banker and being in finance, if I can help someone who's more or less just starting out and make their lives easier and make their lives better, why wouldn't I try to do that? 

When I work with students, and they ultimately have success and I help them fulfill their goals and objectives, it's incredibly rewarding for me that I could think that I helped them get to where they want to go.” 

NE: “Yeah, and that's like another thing for me, when I first heard about the mentorship program was actually through Erin Sweeney, my career counselor, and I honestly didn't know Bauer had one, and now that I know about one, I'm seeing every other mentorship program like I've seen one for women's network that I'm part of, and I think there's one for commercial banking, but going into this, I was just like, OK, well, let me just do it because Erin said so.” 

RW: What were you looking for in a mentor, or did you know? 

NE: “Well, when I applied for the program, I honestly didn't know what I was looking for in a mentor because I didn't have a list of the people that were going to be mentors to look up, but in the back of my mind, I wanted someone in the finance industry, someone who would be able to understand the issues I’m having.  

I'm still new to the industry, and I have an insurance background, and financial planning seems similar, but it's so different when you actually speak to a financial planning professional. 

Going into the program, I just wanted to focus on that and learn from someone who already knew the industry, which thankfully you did, and help me in figuring out what do I actually want to be because I did not know that at this time last year.” 

RW: Do you think having a mentor is an advantage? 

NE: “It definitely was because you were like a mini therapist. You don’t know this, but I used to write down all the notes after every meeting just so I could always go back for myself, it was just like a personal thing.  

So after the mock interview that we had when you asked me: if you were a brand, what would you be? And it was one that was a very random question, and still today, nobody has asked me that question, and I'm mad because I'm prepped for that question now. 

It's like it's one of those things where in interviews it's so tense and people ask you questions, where they just want to see how you're thinking, and I've never actually considered that when prepping for interviews, and you gave me that knowledge.” 

RW: It's a great question, don't you think? 

NE: “It really was because it was one of those questions where you couldn’t plan for it. It was one of those questions where you must think on the spot if you've never heard it before. But now if I was a brand, I would be Beyoncé's brand because she's been in the industry for as long as I've been alive and she's still at the top.” 

NE: Did you ever think about being a mentor even while you were working, or was it just something that you decided after retiring? 

RW: “That's a great question. So in 2008 when the major recession occurred here in the U.S., I was one of millions of people who lost their job.  

At that point, I'd already been working 30 years as a large corporate banker. I'd been successful, but nevertheless, people said to me, you'll never get another job doing what you've been doing these past 30 years. 

We own a second property in Florida, so I started researching whether there were local colleges and universities near it. My thought process was to try to approach these universities that were nearby, reach out to maybe the Dean of the school, maybe reach out to the career services department, and say, OK, here's my background, here are my qualifications. 

I hadn't done anything like this before and I just said to them, you know, would you entertain my assisting your students with things like résumés and cover letters and job search strategies and LinkedIn profiles and networking and all these kinds of things. 

They took me up on my offer and so starting in 2009, I started mentoring both undergraduate and MBA students.  

Then, in 2021, I retired from my career, and I really had this great experience at that point with this university and their students, and I received good feedback from students, I decided to branch out to help students at other universities.  

I researched 115 different colleges in the U.S. and applied to mentorship programs if they had one and that’s how I got to UH and Bauer.  

I worked initially with Kelly Collins at the Rockwell Career Center, and she made me aware of the mentorship program at Bauer. Based on the conversations she and I had, she thought I would be a good person to serve as a mentor in the program, so she put me in touch with them, I interviewed, and then I began working with Bauer graduate students. This is my second year.” 

NE: And your best year so far? 

RW: “They've all been great, and that’s one of the things that I've really liked about the Bauer mentorship program is I've now worked with three people, all of which are women, just by coincidence. And all three women grew up in another country, aside from the United States, so it's really been great working with all three, including you as part of the three, to try to kind of bridge for all of you, maybe cultural differences between your home country and going to school here in the United States at Bauer. 

Bauer has done a really good job matching the students’ interest with my background. So as a result, I think the pairing I had with you and the pairing I had with the two other women in the class before you there, it was just excellent.”  

RW: What has been the biggest takeaway you've learned so far? 

NE: “So far, my biggest take away was just being myself and showing myself as a person. 

I would never speak if someone asked me a question. Nobody ever knew the type of personality that I had. 

Then, I think after one of our meetings, when I was talking to you and got more comfortable with you, I don't remember how you said it, but you had told me to kind of sell my brand to employers and potential people that I speak, connect and network with and just be myself.  

After that, I realized that I do talk a lot and am a happy person. In financial planning there is a lot of client conversations, and you don’t want to be the type of person who doesn’t engage with clients about their personal life because half the time, they don’t care about their finances unless it’s a really bad situation. They want to talk to you about their children, or whatever they are going through.  

I also learned I don't have to be perfect in finance, and I'm so happy I realized that because I was stressing out in the spring trying to get an internship and being the perfect match for employers and it's just not life or death serious.”  

RW: And once your personality came out, it was phenomenal. It was like, yeah, Naomi's rocking it, you know. It's like peeling the onion. How come it took me so long to get to the middle here? 

NE: “Yeah, I don't even know where that personality was.” 

RW: “Well, I think I think it's great that your awesome personality is now, you know, the world now gets to see it.” 

NE: “Exactly. I think it's great that I finally figured out that I had that personality because I did not know that about myself.” 

RW: “But now that it's there, don't ever put it back in the bottle.” 

RW: After you graduate, do you hope to be a mentor yourself, and if so, why would that be important to you? 

NE: “I would love to be a mentor, maybe like two years after I graduate. 

It’s also important for me to be seen as a woman in finance with experience. A lot of my classes, and a lot of people I speak with in finance are not women or people with my background, so I want to be there for younger people who want the same position I would be in two years from now to come to me to learn.  

I also want to get my licenses, take the CFP exam and being able to mentor and be a resource for people that want to become financial professionals and how they can over the issues that I did.”