Gary Gilot, enFocus Mentor advancing our mission

Meet our Mentors Blog Series: #1

enFocus Board member & dedicated mentor shared enFocus "had him at hello"

Gary's passion for service was instilled at a young age. He grew up being mentored and found that enFocus would be a great organization to help him pay it forward for all the mentoring he had received.

Why Mentor for enFocus?

Gary was one of the founding Board members/mentors when enFocus was first established in 2012. When asked why someone should consider becoming a mentor through enFocus, Gary shared "enFocus mentors help attract, develop, and retain exceptional talent that will move progressive solutions from idea to fruition. Mentors expedite traction and sustain momentum. Young talent is still learning the ropes and can gain endless amounts of wisdom through life experiences from 20-30-40 year seasoned professionals who have seen and tackled a lot of complexities."

Gary feels enFocus is the perfect place to share both life and work experiences with the several college students and recent graduates that are working to make an impact in our communities.

Being an enFocus mentor helps drive innovation & impact

Mayor Pete Buttigieg once said that the South Bend-Elkhart region is big enough to have every big city, urban challenge and small enough to be nimble. Where better to pilot civic innovations for translation, replication, and scaling to large metros? Gary feels South Bend and Elkhart, along with the University of Notre Dame, are great places to catalyze change and harvest innovation. enFocus purposely planted itself within this innovative-entrepreneurial hub to drive this innovation.

Being a mentor to young people at enFocus, in a place like South Bend or Elkhart, will allow you to truly make a difference within both the civic and industrial communities not only in this region but throughout the state of Indiana and beyond. Take it from Gary when he says "the fact that enFocus is working in the 50,000 to 100,000 population range, in terms of innovation, is applicable for translation to so many more small metros in the world."

Be on the lookout for another featured mentor in our blog next week. And if you are interested in learning more about mentoring at enFocus, please contact mentorship@en-focus.org.