On the last day of December 2024, President Joe Biden proclaimed January as National Mentoring Month. He encouraged every American—whether a college student, community leader, or someone looking to make a difference—to explore opportunities to mentor or tutor.

Later this year, the WOC STEM Conference will celebrate its 30th anniversary. As we look back at past issues of Women of Color magazine, one common theme emerges among the stories of many award winners: the presence of mentors.

Over the next 200 days, WOC Online will feature 200 past award winners who have demonstrated outstanding performance and leadership in STEM fields while also helping young people find direction, grow, and explore their possibilities, just as the mentors in their lives have impacted them.

From humble beginnings as an intern to becoming a champion, mentor, and coach for emerging engineering talent, Lisa Chamberlain's career is truly inspiring.

Over two decades, she progressed through various technical and management roles, serving as a systems engineering manager within the Rotary and Mission Systems (RMS) division at Lockheed Martin.

The RMS portfolio includes hundreds of programs, covering areas such as helicopters, integrated air and missile defense, littoral warfare, undersea warfare, radar, electronic warfare, command and control, communications, computers (C4), Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR), cyber solutions, and training and logistics systems.

Chamberlain led the training and learning management system for the F-35 as the integration project team lead and served as a first-line manager for Integrated Engineering within RMS.

She excelled not only in delivering products but also in mentoring and coaching emerging engineering talent.

Due to her success, Chamberlain was selected to coach two integration project team leads in an adjacent market segment.

She also led an initiative to transform her team into a T-shaped engineering model, which resulted in a four-fold increase in productivity and performance.

This transformation was achieved by identifying each team member's core and adjacent technical strengths and developing a visual model to illustrate their growth paths.

Chamberlain championed Agile development methods and digital transformation, leading initiatives that introduce new technology while generating cost and schedule savings.