ACE Mentor Program of Central Pennsylvania

Central Pennsylvania is a great area in which to pursue a career in the ACE industry. There is an abundance of Pennsylvania institutions for high school students to choose from and there are many firms willing to mentor these students and welcome them into our profession.

This is our sixth year offering the ACE Mentor Program in Central PA. Due to our wide geographic region, within our Central PA Affiliate, we run four consecutive subaffiliate county programs with totally separate mentors, meeting schedules, and projects in Cumberland, Dauphin, Lancaster, and York Counties. Our 2009-2010 headcount is 178 students representing 47 schools from six counties. We have 19 Board Members and 98 registered mentors.

In addition to the traditional program focused on Architecture, Construction, and Engineering careers, two of our counties augment their Professional track programs by offering a parallel Skilled Trades program focused on the crafts. We have 15 students participating solely in the skilled trades program, while 6 students are committed to both the Professional and Skilled Trades programs. Where offered, the Skilled Trades and Professional sessions are integrated with crossover opportunities.

While we administer four subaffiliates, each county program follows the same basic structure. We split the students into at least two teams, each lead by two mentors (a team leader and an assistant team leader). The team leader and assistant team leader stay with their respective teams throughout the entire program year. Each county selects their own project and each team independently works toward their own project completion. Past projects include designing a bridge, a retail store, and a roller coaster. Weekly work sessions over 16 weeks are carefully planned to expose the students to the various facets (discipline or craft) of a building project. Most two hour sessions follow a lecture/exercise format with emphasis on the exercise portion of each session ideally planned for application to the project. We believe that hands-on experience is integral to the mentoring process. Three sessions typically involve field trips to construction sites, A/E offices, or other related sites such as fabrication shops, etc. The project culminates with each team's presentation of their project design at the last session in front of parents, mentors, and educators where every student has a defined role in the presentation.

Qualifying seniors are eligible for national scholarships as well as local scholarships that are dependent on how successful the local fundraising campaign is each year. Last year, two Central PA Affiliate students won National Scholarships and 23 students were awarded local scholarships.