FWPMI Military Outreach

- Benito Gonzalez - FWPMI Military Outreach Manager

- Preston Pelfrey, PMP 
- John Koren, PMP
- Agnita Jackson, PMP
- Brett Hadley, PMP
- Joshua Cunio, PMP
- Xavier Herrera
- Brandon Phillips
- Ryan Zingraff, PMP

If you are interested in joining this team or have any questions, please email outreach.military@fwpmi.org.

FWPMI Member John Koren

PMP is featured by PMIEF

John Koren, PMP is a long time FWPMI chapter member and he is part of the chapter’s Military Outreach team. He is also a former career officer with the U.S. Air Force and was a paratrooper for 27 years. John was even featured in a PMI Education Foundation article! We are very honored and proud to have John as a Fort Worth PMI chapter member!

Read More about PMIEF!

In PMI’s effort to reach out to and recruit military veterans into its ranks, PMI created a coin that can be ordered and used by chapters, such as the Fort Worth PMI chapter.   Giving a veteran and PMI members a Military Outreach coin is a distinct honor and it stems from a tradition of Military Commanders giving challenge coins to service members as a “mark of camaraderie”.

As active military personnel are making the transition out of the military, some are realizing that they may be able to transition into project management.  The FWPMI Military Outreach team seeks opportunities such as Military Career Fairs, where they can meet these veterans and offer them information about project management, the FWPMI chapter, and support as they are making this transition.  These coins are a tool that the FWPMI Military Outreach team can use to reach out to veterans trying to transition into project management and are a wonderful way to honor our own veterans as members and volunteers who continue to serve their fellow veterans.

If you would like more information about the Military Outreach team, please contact outreach.military@fwpmi.org.

PMIEF Community Advancement Award, Individual, 2017:

Speed Mentoring for Veterans
By Tresia D. Eaves, MHR, PMP

PMIEF-Awards-2017-2.jpg

 

It was thrilling to receive the 2017 PMIEF Community Advancement Award as an Individual Project Manager having given of my skills and time through philanthropic work over the past year.  I have actually worked with NPower on the Speed Mentoring program since 2012 but have only recently been able to develop and implement a project plan that can be rolled out across the country serving any number of communities.  I have organized this article into the major steps it takes to build a program like this and hope you are able to find some use in your communities.

Recruit Mentors– As a veteran myself and a longtime member of my Dallas-Fort Worth community, I am involved with many organizations and one of my roles (besides being the FWPMI Chapter President – shout out: www.fwpmi.org) is to lead the Philanthropy team for the Society of Information Management (shout out to this group: www.simnet.org). This role gives me the opportunity to meet with many technology executives and tell them about many great opportunities to give back to our community.  They are usually so excited that they reach out to me each time a new calendar event is announced.  I would suggest that you schedule your Speed Mentoring event enough in advance to be able to communicate the opportunity for mentors to get involved. 

Since our mentors are technology executives, they are usually very busy and highly scheduled so it’s best to give plenty of notice so they can plan ahead to participate – we usually plan our events 6-8 weeks in advance. I also make sure to put an invite on their calendars – you can usually do this through Outlook or even Google Mail or Yahoo in order to provide them with specific instructions on the timing of the event, the dress, the location, and any other details they will want at the last minute.  Be sure to remind them to bring plenty of business cards and also if possible, send them an electronic resume booklet available to them to review if they have time before the actual event.  They can also pay to print it if they so choose – many of our volunteers do and they make notes and questions throughout.

Also remember to coordinate with the program sponsoring the veterans and find a time that works with their training programs – we work with NPower’s Technology Service Corps here in Dallas – Npower has other offices throughout the USA so please let me know if I can help you get connected: www.npower.org.          

You will also want to do a training course for mentors – usually do this the day of but in plenty of time before the event while serving the executives lunch – teach them about the veterans program they are supporting, any relevant statistics about hiring veterans, about how the event will work, walk them through the schedule and see if they have any questions.

Run the event- Start with a short introduction and either introduce the mentors or have them introduce themselves (if there is time) and ring the bell for the first session – you can keep a time running on an overhead if that will help the executives stay on their short interview schedules.

Have the right number of tables where each executive can “host” the discussion at that table and the veterans will visit each table and route through meeting all the executives in 10 minute segments meeting with the host and discussing:

  • their resume or CV and if they’ve been able to translate military terms to business language
  • their interests and where there might be connections through the executives networks
  • general information about the market trends in the areas of the veterans’ interests/experience
  • encourage further contact if there is a natural connection between mentor and mentee by connecting on LinkedIn or through additional sessions at their own discretion

Close the event- Depending on the number of veterans, we usually have 35-45 veterans per session, about 12-18 executive hosts and the sessions usually last about 2 hours not including the initial training of the executives and lunch.  I try to limit surveys since we’re so inundated these days but I do ask for feedback before I have them sign a form that tracks how many volunteer hours they’ve donated.  Our organizations use the volunteer hours as a metric for performance.  We take their feedback and are able to constantly and flexibly improve the program over time.


Military Outreach Mission:

The FWPMI MOT leads military outreach activities within the chapter and in the local community by building relationships through the promotion of PMI values, processes, skills and certifications to local military personnel. The MOT then leverages these relationships in applying assistance to transitioning veterans to accelerate their path to PMI certifications leading to a career in project management.

Veteran Partners: