Patrick Spiger understands the importance of mentoring young people. He mentored college students professionally and now works with Ridgeview High School students as a volunteer.

“A mentor is able to approach the conversation from a neutral standpoint,” Spiger said. “There are no family dynamics. As a result, a lot of the students will engage in conversation without feeling they have to please me or do what I want them to do.”

ASPIRE, the statewide mentoring program Spiger works with, is among the agencies working with Better Together Central Oregon, a nonprofit program with the High Desert Education Service District as part of National Mentoring Month. Better Together hopes to recruit new mentors to agencies including ASPIRE, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Oregon, Campfire and Heart of Oregon Corps.

Groups, including the Redmond Chamber of Commerce, Kiwanis, Rotary and the Central Oregon Retired Teachers Association, will discuss the importance of mentoring during meetings. And local governments will have proclamations on Mentoring Month, with the Redmond City Council expected to have one at its Tuesday meeting.

“I’m thrilled with how the community has come together to support our youth for this endeavor,” said Bev Vazquez with Better Together. “It’s very exciting.”

Spiger retired to Redmond after working from 2008-14 for Inside Track, a Portland company that provided executive coaching and mentoring to students at a Southern California university. He was able to draw from his previous experience in Spokane, Washington, owning an elder care agency with 100 employees, a wholesale optical company with 35 employees and working as a financial planner and insurance broker.

“That diversity just gave me a lot of exposure to life,” Spiger said.

Before mentoring professionally, Spiger said he mentored a student 20 years ago during the student’s junior and senior years of high school. Spiger still keeps in contact today with the man, who went on to become a pharmaceutical sales rep and inspirational speaker with an international recruiting firm.

Spiger jumped at the chance to volunteer at Ridgeview after seeing a notice about ASPIRE in his monthly water bill. He works with six students because of his experience in mentoring, which is more than most volunteers at Ridgeview. He spends about 30 minutes a week with each.

“I’m really interested in focusing on what I can bring to a conversation with a young person who is about to get out of high school,” he said. “I consider that a significant milestone in all our lives.”

Much of the work Spiger and the other volunteers do deals with evaluating the students’ skills, like how organized they are, what tools they have and how they set goals, he said. He is trying to help them be successful at higher education or in finding industries where they can learn a trade.

“Even though most of them have both parents, I’m sort of in position to ask a question on how well are you equipped to take care of yourself, to cook a meal, to get a job,” Spiger said.

Spiger typically meets with the junior and senior students in the school library between October and May.

“I try to work on keeping them accountable,” he said. “So if they say they are going to perform a task, I ask when they are going to finish it. When we meet next, I ask if they completed the task and how did it go. All the kinds of things that will make them successful in college or work.”

Conversations also deal with topics like filling out college applications and financial aid forms, Spiger said.

While Spiger has the advantage of a background in professional mentoring, he said it isn’t necessary to mentor with ASPIRE.

“It’s a fabulous program that offers some training to help some people that might not have the same skills,” he said. “If you’ve got life experience, you’ve got the skills to be a mentor. I just happen to be better trained.”

For more information on mentoring, visit bettertogethercentraloregon.org.

“It’s just nice to be engaged with young people that are in many cases venturing out for the first time,” Spiger said. “It’s nice feeling that I’ve helped them be a little more prepared to be successful out there.”

— Reporter: 541-548-2186, gfolsom@redmondspokesman.com