Citation By Robert Dr
Director
Environmental Science
Geology and Earth Science
Canada
Biography
When you are young and know just about everything, or think you do, associating with a mentor can be a significant, life-altering experience. Maybe you are on the verge of losing direction, maybe you have unanswered career questions, maybe you need re-stimulation, maybe you’ve come to a crossroad, and the path to your future world is unclear. Be of good cheer — a mentor can guide you. I had an industry mentor for ten years, from university graduation through graduate school and out onto the job. It was a gratifying and job-enhancing experience, to say the least. In 1994, Roy Shlemon created an endowment with the GSA Foundation to support applied geology. The initial activity was student mentoring, and the first expenditure of Shlemon Fund endowment income was in 1996 for three Shlemon Mentor workshops at GSA Section meetings. The program has since grown exponentially — through 2008, 3,000 students have had opportunities to interface with 500 mentors. Roy’s program was the bell cow that led to other GSA mentor activities, now an important service for young geoscientists. By mid-2008, 7,000 students had met with 1,700 professionals working in applied geology. Roy’s career has included teaching and research positions at eight institutions and over 30 years as a full-time, multidisciplinary, consulting engineering geologist in southern California. Comfortable in both applied geology and academia/research, Roy fully appreciates the importance of cooperation and coordination between these two fundamental sectors of the science. For geology students, mentoring presents an early career opportunity to begin this process. This is the International Year of Planet Earth, one purpose of which is “to encourage more young people to study the earth sciences at universities.” The Shlemon Mentor Program in Applied Geology accomplishes this purpose; Roy’s role as the Program’s founder and enabler accomplishes the purpose of the Presidential Medal.
Research Interest
Environmental Science and Earth science
