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Paul Barr

Seven years ago Paul Barr saw a need to encourage local students in technical careers—and so he began a mentoring program at MITRE's Fort Monmouth site. This initiative provides students with opportunities to explore technical careers through internships and seasonal hire programs.

Barr, a veteran teacher and engineer, has been at MITRE for 17 years, first in Bedford, Massachusetts and then in Eatontown, New Jersey. Currently an adjunct professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology and a Technical Manager for MITRE, Barr finds working with co-ops and interns to be inspiring.

"I've been teaching for over 50 years and I firmly believe it's the young people I work with that keep me going," he says. "I've found these mentoring relationships to be extremely rewarding."

The students in the Eatontown program are primarily from the Stevens Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. As Barr explains, "It's my job to find out the types of projects the students are interested in and coordinate with the project managers here at MITRE to find the right place for the interns."

Establishing a successful mentoring program has had its challenges."I've found that there's a lot more to it than selecting smart kids for the job," he says. "They have to have qualities that are compatible to MITRE. Yes, they need to be intelligent, but they also need to be inquisitive, resourceful, and able to think outside the box."

"I've also found that if you give bright students work over their head, they generally find a way to do it. I insist that the students are given substantive project work"work that will interest them and challenge them. No gopher jobs allowed," he continues. "Then I put the students to work in a lab together so that they interact peer-to-peer. That's extremely important. I don't put them in offices where they're isolated from each other."

Over the years, past participants have talked to their fellow students and by word of mouth the program has grown.

"Word of mouth worked from the MITRE end of it too," adds Barr. "Staff come to me and say 'I have work that needs to be done"do you have a student that would be interested in the project?' So I'm the matchmaker between project needs and interested students. It's a very collaborative process. Both the students and MITRE staff know my door is always open."

Adrian Lastra, a former student under Barr's tutelage and now a full-time MITRE employee, praises Barr's efforts. "I am amazed at Paul's wealth of ideas. He is constantly trying to stay ahead of the curve in whatever he is working on. This meant that he always had some task for me, some experiment he wanted to try out. As a result, my co-op term was interesting and challenging. He showed me the ropes in terms of working and he made sure I kept school a priority, allowing me to take time off as necessary."

While Barr spends the bulk of his time on the "Executable Architecture Methodology for Analysis" research project, he thoroughly enjoys the mentoring program and remains an enthusiastic advocate of it. "The program is unique to MITRE"and also very necessary," he says. "This young talent is our future."

MITRE's Fort Monmouth site, one of our largest sites, is home to over 150 employees and is located in Eatontown, New Jersey. Staff there primarily support MITRE's Washington Command, Control and Communications (WC3) Center.