History of Mentoring
Over 4,000 years ago. Odysseus, King of Ithaca, had to leave his family to go to fight a war that would last for 10 years.

Odysseus asked his friend Mentor to watch over and guide his son, Telemachus, while he was gone. Mentor's task was to help Telemacus learn and carry out the duties required by his office as Prince.

Definition
Mentoring means a more experienced or older person who acts as a role model, compatriot, challenger, guide or cheerleader for a less experienced person.

Let me introduce myself
My name is Ken Goobie I was born in Antigonish Nova Scotia (1950). My father & mother left that area with me and my four brothers to start a new life in Hamilton Ontario. My father got a job at the city transit HSR (Hamilton Street Railway Company) as a mechanics helper, repairing and maintaining the buses. Growing up watching my dad, I decided that I too would one day work for this same company, but as a bus driver. It's hard to believe, but it's been 30 years since I started working at the HSR. It wasn't too long ago, one day while driving my bus that the thought hit me, "Ken you've been driving this bus for a long time and with retirement just around the corner, you'll soon be leaving this work behind you." And as I processed that thought, I looked in my driver's side mirror and noticed the wheels spinning around. And the thought came to me, "If I don't reach out to my fellow operators and try to help them in some small way before I retire what a shame." I decided right there at that moment I was going to take my years of experience and some how I was going to channel that knowledge into something that would enrich the lives and working experience of my fellow drivers. What happened next was remarkable . . . . come back soon for the next chapter of how a mentoring program was launched.