This month, Mantooth Company is officially 27 years old! While much has changed since 1995 – both in the world at large and within our company – one thing has remained very much the same since the day Mantooth was founded. That is, Mantooth’s dedication to mentorship.
One of the clearest examples of Mantooth’s dedication to mentorship is through our long-standing internship program. Since the day Mantooth was founded, interns have been an integral part of our day-to-day operations as a company. Over 150 interns have worked on the Mantooth team, and those interns have come from universities all over the U.S.! By working closely with full-time staff, these interns have all gained real-world experience in the fast-paced world of marketing – and have moved on to do some amazing things, both personally and professionally!
Mantooth’s internship program is beneficial to interns and full-time staff alike! While interns are given opportunities to learn and prepare for future success, full-time staff are given a chance to train, teach, mentor, and work alongside interns who are usually younger or less experienced.
Mantooth’s Communications and Marketing Maven, Mishelle Baun, has been involved in media and public relations for over 30 years. As a veteran writer and editor, she works closely with our journalism students, providing them with guidance on crafting blogs and social media copy. It’s gratifying to her that three of Mantooth’s current employees began with us as interns, two from CSU’s journalism department.
We recently came across an article written back in 2010 by BizWest, and it just so happens to be an “Outstanding Mentor” feature on none other than Mantooth Founder and Chief Relationship Officer Connie Hanrahan! While the story may be over a decade old, the sentiment behind it has not changed one bit – mentorship at Mantooth gives young professionals space to find their strengths!
Read the original article below, or follow the link to BizWest’s website to learn all about Mantooth’s history of mentorship over the last 27 years.
Hanrahan gives women space to find their strengths
Connie Hanrahan’s motto is: “If it’s not fun, why do it?”
That’s not what makes her such a popular mentor, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.
Hanrahan started mentoring young women through a formal internship program she offered as Director of Marketing for Rocky Mountain Business Ventures. In 1995, she founded marketing firm The Mantooth Co. where she continues to offer an official mentoring program to female college students with a GPA of 3.5 or higher only.
Hanrahan believes she has formally mentored anywhere from three to five interns per year. Informally, it’s a little more difficult to figure how many women – of various ages – seek her guidance or merely wish to “pick her brain” whether it be via telephone, email, over lunch or bumping into her on the street.
Her success as a business woman makes her an ideal mentor, but mentoring was not something Hanrahan specifically set out to do.
“Not at all,” she admits, but she does recall the day when she decided to start.
A young woman approached Hanrahan after a meeting to run a few ideas by her. When asked why she didn’t speak up during the meeting to present her good ideas then, the young woman said she did not want to look stupid in front of the men in the room. Combating women’s lack of confidence in the workplace is one of Hanrahan’s biggest objectives as a mentor.
To help build confidence, Hanrahan essentially leaves her interns when they might least expect it. This is a mentoring style some of her interns jokingly, but lovingly, call “baptism by fire.” She will lead by example and then purposefully leave, whether it be for a business trip or for an afternoon at the golf course. This absence, both mentor and mentees agree, forces the women to find their own inner strengths, instincts and abilities.
During her internship at Mantooth, Carmen Ruyle Hardy was assigned several event and marketing projects and told to convince clients that she could handle their campaigns. Hanrahan said she’d check in on her after she returned from a trip to Cozumel.
Hardy eventually accepted an offer to become Mantooth’s first employee. Under Hanrahan’s arm’s-length mentoring, she said she learned the value of supporting those who support you, and grew to become the owner of two graphics companies with interns of her own.
“Even more importantly, I am only one of several smart, confident women who attribute many of her successes directly to Connie’s influences,” she wrote in her nomination letter. “She has shown us the value of the importance of passing the torch and empowering the next generation.”
Considering how many women Hanrahan has mentored or advised over the years, she is rather humble about what she does and merely describes it as “something I can contribute.”
And despite the number of women whose lives have been touched by Hanrahan – those who no doubt consider it much more than a contribution – she feels young women still need guidance.
So, what does the mentor who never really set out to be a mentor think about mentoring now? “It’s not something I think about not doing.”
