International Mentoring Day is observed annually on January 17th. 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.

Andrea Permessur-Gee was a senior software engineering manager at L3Harris when she received a 2023 Technology Rising Star award at the WOC STEM Conference.

Andrea was recognized for sustained mentoring that helped employees build their skills and prepare for future careers while maintaining a strong network of role models.

A vital member of L3Harris's Space and Airborne Systems segment's engineering leadership team, Andrea led ~100 embedded software engineers across various locations.

Her role involved enabling these engineers to design and develop mission-critical software for electronic warfare systems to meet clients' needs.

In addition to managing software engineers across multiple locations, Andrea's responsibilities included talent development, functional initiative execution, hiring, maintaining program performance, and more.

She also provided opportunities for direct reports to work as her delegate to prepare them for the engineering manager role.

She held several positions within the company, including group leader in software configuration, integrated product team leader on the Global Positioning System (GPS)and GPS satellite block programs, and software engineering manager in the electronic warfare business unit.

Andrea was the first in her family to graduate from college and received scholarships and support from her parents to achieve this.

Pursuing an MBA while working full-time, Andrea desired to take on a leadership role to make a broader impact. She is a first-generation American with Asian parents who immigrated from Guyana.

Raquel Cundiff, born in the Philippines as the youngest of seven children, moved to Missouri with her family after her father retired from professional basketball.

Raquel is a dedicated advocate for women in STEM and mentors college students through the Women in Science & Engineering (WiSE) program.

Her dedication to the community and early-career professionals earned her a nomination for the 2016 Women of Color Community Service Award.

As a manager, she applied her tutoring and mentoring skills to work teams.

Raquel joined Boeing as a stress engineer, where she progressively advanced over two decades, recently serving as an integration leader for customer engineering.

As an advocate and mentor for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), she participated in the Summer Intern Program and Engineering Accelerated Hiring Initiative Program as an instructor and mentor.

She also led the professional development section of the Boeing Women in Leadership program and organized conference workshops and events to support mentoring and student development.