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APAA mentor program charter

10 April 2025

The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out and meet it.
-- Thucydides

This is the character of today’s Army public affairs and visual information professional – brave. Few would argue that our information environment is more complex and more challenging that at any time in our Army’s history. The chaotic environment into which our Army must communicate with clarity has never been more unpredictable, adversarial, even prosecutorial. Our Soldiers and their Families, first and foremost, but also our civilian employees, the Congress, and ultimately the American people must trust and depend on the information they get from our public affairs/visual information community.

Recruiting, developing, retaining and sustaining a cadre of yes, brave professionals who understand this environment and yet will go out and meet it is critical to our Army’s success. Central to that effort in the past has been the traditionally informal self-guided mentoring from one generation to the next. One generation passing along the benefit of experience to the next. For decades, the pace of times in the past allowed for this more flexible, informal way of becoming or finding a mentor. However, that pace is extinct. And retaining public affairs/visual information professionals for the long term is becoming understandably more challenging. If we are to meet the growing imperative for each of us to be stewards of our profession - to actively create, grow and retain seasoned communicators, spokespeople, storytellers, multimedia and visual information specialists – then formally seeking and creating intergenerational relationships with mentoring in both directions is critical and can be a tangible benefit to all in our profession and to the Army itself.

The Army Public Affairs Association (APAA) offers the APAA Mentor Program to formalize this effort and offer it as a service to the Army Public Affairs and Visual Information community of practice.

APAA can help you connect with a mentor who can help you define, shape, plan, reach and succeed in the public affairs or visual information career you envision. Mentors can be instrumental in helping you make plans, solve challenges, grow professionally, and indeed become mentors yourself to generations following you.

Those currently serving and a vast network of 'gray beards' with decades of experience across all career tracks, APAA's mentor program can help you build your future. Our program is not intended to circumvent official Army public affairs mentoring programs. This program serves as an extension of existing Army mentoring and training, and connects current military and civilian public affairs and visual information practitioners and former senior professionals to increase knowledge sharing, share different perspectives, ideas and technologies, to foster enthusiasm through internal and external relationships, and to grow the formation.

If you would like to become an APAA Mentor or to become a mentee paired with an APAA Mentor, we'd love to make it happen. Email us at admin@armypublicaffairsassociation.org and put MENTOR PROGRAM in the subject line.

Mentoring Program Charter Document
Sample Mentorship Agreement

Mentorship Program video - click to play

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