Mentor Interview Guide

Checklist prior to interview:

❏ Five questions already selected.
❏ Recording device (i.e. your phone or other recording device).
❏ Internship Journal (just in case you have to take notes, see script below).

Fill in the following before returning to school on Monday June 6th.

Interviewer Name: Andrew Noriega
Mentor Name: Sonnie Bocala
Date of Interview:)06/01/2022
Device on which interview is being recorded:My phone.
Interview audio file uploaded to Google Drive and saved as: [Last Name, FNI]_MentorInvterview Audio
Interview Question Mentor’s Response
(You will complete this when you return to school)

1. When is the best part of your work day? Lunch time…The end of the day at quality control.

Why would you say that? To see how your plan in the morning turned out and what we
can plan for the next day and focus on what we need to do.

2. What do you like to do outside of work? Mountain biking and working around the garage.

3. What is the most difficult part of the day and how do you In the morning when people call out, you gotta make
overcome it? adjustments and maintain production and the schedule.

And being adjustable? Yeah, you just have to adapt, you kinda need to predict who's
gonna be out, and still make sure the production still goes out
the work still goes out.

4. What would you say was the highlight of your career? It was at a recent event I went to. I’ve been in the industry
longer than most people and I get to drive what the industry’s
So it would be like seeing what you’ve become?
5. How do you effectively manage employees?
6. What steps did you take to obtain this position?
doing. If I develop something today, it will be talked about in next
year's event. So I went from the youngest guy in the room to the
most seasoned guy and drive what the industry’s gonna be like
next year.
Yeah, I got lucky I got into the industry when it was small and
now the industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. We were one of
the smaller players even though we were one of the smaller
ones, people look to us to see what the next part of the industry
is gonna be.
You have to create the environment for success for each one of
them, know what their skill sets are, know what they’re lacking,
what you trained them on, what they excel at, and then position
them to succeed. So like for you for these three weeks, I put you
in a position in things that you are excited about, and wouldn’t
put you in something you didn't know what to do when I’m trying
to get something done, cause there’s a risk you might make a
mistake and them it would be my fault because I didn’t teach it
to you. So basically putting you in a position, training you,
answering your questions so that you understand the process
instead of just doing the motion that you know why you’re doing
it and know how to be self-sufficient. Because today you were
pretty much working independently by yourself, with you giving
you the task and you completing the task and not standing over
your shoulder while you did it, I’ve already watched you enough
and worked through your issues.
I sat in every single position. In the army, they teach you how to
lead by example, so I’ve sat in every single department over the
last 20 years, so I know how to answer every single question
and demonstrate or troubleshoot something.
7. What was one of the most difficult moments in your career
and how did you get past it?
8. What inspired you to choose this career?
9. When you were a junior in high school what were your career
aspirations?
10. So what would you say is the best part of your day as a
whole?
Splitting with my business partner and going independent. If
partnerships go sideways you gotta have a backup plan. People
have different visions for the company and when you have a
partner it's difficult. I was making double the amount of money
I’m making now, but I own all of it. It's a long-term play vs the
short-term money.
Nothing inspired as much as bills being honest. When you don't
want to go back home and graduate college, you have to figure
out what type of lifestyle you want and what it is going to take to
afford that. I started off with what type of lifestyle I wanted and
how much money I would need to make in order to have that
kind of lifestyle and backward plan. This dentistry is fun to me it
doesn't feel like work, we've been here for 8 hours, and time
flies. I do this to afford the lifestyle I want and this helps me help
others.
With the pressure to go to college, I wanted to be a dentist. So
here I am a lab technician, a lab owner, somewhere in between
there is that. So my goal as a junior essentially was to become a
dentist, but all my guy friends went to college and the military
and I wanted to have fun too. So I joined the military later on.
The best part of my day is walking in and being greeted by
everybody, good morning, and at the end of the day when
everybody leaves and they say goodnight, we’ll see you
tomorrow and I say thank you as a sign of mutual respect, not
every company does that, some have it where people just clock
out and not even say anything, this is not one of those
companies. We have a culture here where we’re big enough to
have a lot of people but small enough that I know everybody’s
kid's names and all that stuff. So at the end of the day, it's that
respect we have for each other.