“Building Relationships: Mentoring gives young professionals a foundation for success”

The Tennessean, by Lisa Benavides, September 26, 1999

The age-old art of career mentoring has experienced a rebirth in recent years, changing to fit a work world of job hopping and frantic schedules.

Rather than the traditional model of a senior manager shepherding a promising young professional through his or her career, mentoring has evolved into a more flexible, fluid relationship.

“I view everyone as a mentor to me and myself as a mentor to other people," said Laura Campbell, a Nashville business consultant who cites a stable of mentors she turns to depending on the career matter in question.

She meets once a month with her mentor of 10 years, health-care executive Dick Ragsdale, for guidance in growing her company, Laura Campbell & Associates.
"Dick represents to me a very positive role model," Campbell said. "I especially admire his commitment to his family and philanthropic causes. That's something I aspire to do."

The new age of mentoring

Definitions of mentoring range from an informal relationship like Campbell's to formal programs assigning younger employees to more experienced executives. It can involve once-a-week lunch dates, regular phone calls or occasional consultations.

The lifespan of mentoring is also changing. No longer assumed to be a career-stretching relationship, mentoring can mean successive mentors as individuals move through stages in their careers, or an ongoing relationship with several mentors, similar to a personal board of directors.

Although the form mentoring takes is flexible, there are some guidelines, both protégés and mentors note.

At its most basic, a mentoring relationship involves an older or more experienced mentor paired with a younger, less experienced one, said Susan Ford Wiltshire, author of Athena's Disguises: Mentors in Everyday Life.

"In this mobile and changing society, we all need wise ones ahead of us, and sometimes they're just a little ahead of us," said Wiltshire, a classics professor at Vanderbilt University.

In her book, Wiltshire talks about the first Mentor, a character in Homer's Odyssey who was a teacher and guide to Odysseus' son. Mentor was actually the Greek goddess of wisdom Athena in disguise.

Wiltshire attained tenure at Vanderbilt's male-dominated faculty in 1975, just three years after official quotas limiting the number of women admitted to the university were abolished. She credits her numerous mentors with helping her achieve success.
"Mentors (are) those companions for the journey who give us the courage to be who we are," Wiltshire writes in her book, published by Westminster John Knox Press last year.

Mentoring as a perk

Part of mentoring's rebirth is due to a push by employers desperate to hire and keep skilled workers. They see mentoring as a way to fulfill their workers' requests for growth and learning opportunities.

Formal programs are filling the void left by the downsizing of the 1980s, when many of those in the best position to act as mentors older executives left the work force. Now about 77% of U.S. companies offer formal mentor programs, according to the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, N.C.

Two such local companies are Life Trust America and Quorum Health Resources LLC, which use mentoring to retain employees.

"It's time-intensive, but I know if we don't hook a new hire up with someone, they'll be gone in two years because they never get acclimated to the system," said Vicki Yenzer, associate vice president at Quorum.

Her department pairs a new hire with a more experienced worker, having them spend an initial two or three days together. The mentor is given an inch-thick binder of information to help answer questions and offer guidance.
How it's done

Whether a formal match-up or a relationship that develops on its own, mentoring requires both sides to be clear about their objectives, said Genie James, principal at Ausculta Consulting and Writing.

"Too many people go into a contact with the point of view, "Please do something for me,' " said James, who has had about seven mentors throughout her career. "That's a one-way street that's not a relationship."

For James, giving back includes sending her mentor the notes from a seminar he had recommended she attend, or passing along an article he might find interesting.

Many mentorships grow out of professional relationships. When Anita Jenious
was a sophomore at Vanderbilt University 18 years ago, her work study assignment was in the school's Opportunity Development Center. Today, she's associate director there, largely due to her mentor, Patricia Pierce, the center's director.

"Back in the early '80s, you still didn't see a lot of women in leadership positions," Jenious said. "Pat was real good about teaching me how to do things, what was appropriate and what wasn't."

Pierce said she was drawn to Jenious' talent and eagerness, and wanted to share her experience to aid Jenious' rise.

"I've been through this and felt I could prevent her from making some of the mistakes I've made," Pierce said.

Campbell's and Ragsdale's bond grew from shared interests in fast-growing start-ups. Ragsdale helped start 10 young companies, including Community Health Systems and New Life Treatment. Campbell previously worked in venture capital at Massey Burch Capital Corp., then started the Nashville Health Care Council in 1995. She left two years later to start her own consulting firm.

"He treats business as a great adventure," Campbell said of Ragsdale.

Ashley Caldwell, spokeswoman for H.G. Hill's grocery stores, turned to community and business leader Martha Ingram for advice and mentorship about five years ago.

"I approached her for help in figuring a plan for Hill's corporate giving program," Caldwell said. That started a relationship that continues today. "It was really flattering for me that she gave me that time."

Caldwell has been on the other side of the relationship as well, mentoring students interested in her field of business.

Hanes Roberts, a senior at Vanderbilt from North Carolina, approached Caldwell two years ago for a project he was working on regarding the Hill company. Since then, she's advised him on career and school.

"Ashley's given me real insight, because she has lived in the grocery store business and does it on a day-to-day basis," he said.

MaryAnne Howland, founder of IBIS Communications, aggressively approached women whom she admired and wanted as mentors throughout her career.

"These were women who represent to me very strong, aggressive, take-no-prisoners women," Howland said. "That's what I think it takes to succeed in business."
She cited Toni Faye, a senior vice president at Time Inc., as one of her earliest mentors, back when she worked at Time. She invited Faye out to lunch and peppered her with questions on what her work and life was like.

"I didn't ask, "Would you be my mentor?"' Howland said. "I wasn't in her face all the time. But we met every few months. What person doesn't want to talk about themselves?"
James noted that being respectful of the mentor's time is key to making such a relationship work.

"These people have schedules that are very full," James said.

She schedules a 10- to 15-minute meeting with someone she admires, either on the phone or face to face. Then she is sure to keep to that time frame.

"I'd say I wanted to share with them a little of my life and ask their advice," James said.
Less formal mentoring opportunities present themselves more than most people realize, said Thelma Kidd, former co-owner of Davis-Kidd Booksellers.

"It's very important to be open to opportunities that present themselves and always be open to learning," she said.

Giving back

The value of mentoring is best shown by the fact so many protégés end up being mentors themselves.

"When somebody asks me for advice, I consider it one of the greatest compliments they could give me," said Campbell, who's been approached by an increasing number of women over the years asking for advice.

"The best thing is to keep the notion always that this is a gift," said Wiltshire. "It's a gift for the older and younger ones to give."

Graphic: PHOTO BY JARED LAZARUS / STAFF
Dick Ragsdale and Laura Campbell toast each other at Princeton's Grille. They have shared a successful professional mentoring relationship for 10 years.

"Venture cap firm looks to alternative markets"
 Nashville Business Journal, by Judy Sarles, July 26, 1999

A downturn in the level of venture capital funding for Nashville area health care companies has at least one local venture capital firm switching gears.

In about three months, Salix Ventures, L.P., a venture capital firm in Nashville, will open an office in Menlo Park, Calif., a high-technology center, to enhance the firm's focus on combined health care and Internet firms, says Marty Felsenthal, a principal of Salix. Salix also invests in specialized health care services companies and information technology companies. "The health care and Internet industry is just at the beginning of development," says Felsenthal.

Investors' money flows to venture capital firms, which invest the money in a portfolio of start-up or other risky companies that have the potential to become profitable. The venture capital firms form funds serving as sources for start-up company funding.

Estimates of the number of venture capital firms based in Nashville range from about seven to a dozen, because not all of the firms fall within the traditional definition of a venture capital firm. For example, one firm that has been designated as a venture firm invests in a company only when it's at least three years old.

Some of the larger banks in the Nashville area have venture capital divisions, national venture capital firms have offices here, and senior partners at investment banking firms also do some venture capital investing. One of the newest venture capital funds was formed by Vanderbilt University. Sam Belk, a market executive with the financial strategies group at NationsBank, says NationsBank Capital Investors in Charlotte, N.C., and in California do primarily second or later-stage venture capital investing and have benefited a few companies in the Nashville area. "Yes, we've definitely done deals in this region and this area," he says.

There also is a lot of "angel" money or invested dollars from rich individuals and accredited investors in the Nashville area. Accredited investors have a net income of at least $200,000 in each of the last two years or an excess of $1 million in net worth and a reasonable expectation of those amounts in the current year, explains Carter Todd, a partner with the law firm of Stokes & Bartholomew.

Several area venture capital firms are of significant size in their portfolios. Massey Burch Investment Group, the oldest venture capital firm in Nashville, founded in 1968, has $248 million in capital under management, reports Venture Economics, a New Jersey-based division of Thomson Financial Securities Data.

Salix, in its present form, was founded in 1997. Its largest fund is about $61 million and the total of its funds is just under $70 million.

Felsenthal says Nashville is a center for venture capital firms in the Southeast, along with Atlanta. Some sources claim Nashville has around $300 million in venture capital.

"I don't know if we're a center," says Jay Hoffman, a partner with Coleman Swenson Hoffman Booth Inc. "We have an outstanding group of firms. We're fairly well represented."

Laura Campbell, president of Laura Campbell & Associates, a Nashville consulting practice that assists rapidly growing companies, says California's "Silicon Valley" and Boston are venture capital hot spots. In the Southeast, she lists Atlanta, the Research Triangle area of North Carolina, Dallas and Austin, Texas, as locations considered centers for venture capital firms.

Due to the early-stage nature of venture capital investing, it is advantageous for the majority of venture capital firms to be near to their investments, so they can work closely with a company's management team, says Campbell. The beehive of activity from for-profit health care companies and the subsequent spin-off of health-care start-ups in Nashville has led to the need for venture capital.

The health-care industry has been less than healthy in the last 12 to 15 months due to publicly traded companies experiencing some problems with their stock prices and other companies being adversely affected by changes in Medicare reimbursement, so health care is out of favor with a lot of venture capital firms, says Chris Kyriopoulos, an associate with Clayton Associates.

But other sources say the health care industry may be making a comeback.

Telecommunications industries in the Nashville area are also starting to attract venture capital. Ed Nelson of Nelson Capital, a firm founded in Nashville 12 years ago, notes that his firm invests in information technology, broadcasting, telecommunications, insurance and manufacturing.

"Overall, there has been a tremendous increase in the amount of venture capital funding over the last several decades," says Campbell. "This growth has been paralleled by an increase in the number of venture capital firms."

Salix, when it seeks to invest in a company, looks for an outstanding management team as well as a market opportunity with momentum. Campbell says venture capital firms invest in companies that have experienced management teams, have the ability to grow rapidly and the potential to go public or be acquired.

"We're not necessarily expecting the company to pay us back our money," says Kyriopoulos. "We're going to take a percentage of ownership in the company for our capital so that down the road, if the company goes public or is sold outright, then we would expect to realize a return on our investment."