L. Patrick Mellon Mentorship Program

The Story of Mentor

The story of Mentor comes from Homer's Odyssey . When Odysseus, King of Ithaca, went to fight in the Trojan War, he entrusted the care of his household to Mentor, who served as teacher and overseer of Odysseus's son, Telemachus. But Mentor was more than a teacher. Mentor was half-god and half-man, half-male and half-female, believable and yet unreachable. Mentor was the union of both goal and path, wisdom personified. (Daloz, 1983).

Eventually, father and son were reunited and together they cast down would-be usurpers of Odysseus's throne and of Telemachus's birthright. In time, the word mentor became synonymous with trusted advisor, friend, teacher and wise person. History offers many examples of helpful mentoring relationships - such as Socrates and Plato, Hayden and Beethoven, and Freud and Jung. Mentoring is now seen as a process where mentor and mentee work together to discover and develop the mentee's abilities. The goal is not a particular position within a company. Rather, it is the empowerment of the mentee by developing his or her abilities.

Even formal mentoring is largely the art of making the most of a given situation. There are no hard and fast rules for a mentoring relationship. Mentoring should be flexible. It is part intuition, part feeling and part hunch - made up as you go along. From that reality, mentoring derives its power.

In an increasingly complex and high-tech environment, we all experience needs for special insight, understanding and information that are outside the normal channels or training programs. NAMIC's L. Patrick Mentorship Program is intended to fulfill those needs.

L. Patrick Mellon Biography

Patrick’s great professional accomplishments as a leader in the telecommunications industry are only a small part of his success story. His true success was his heart, his spirit and his humanity.

L. Patrick Mellon Joined ESPN, Inc. in July 1995 as Senior Vice President, affiliate sales and marketing. In his position, Mellon was responsible for all ESPN and ESPN2 domestic affiliate sales and marketing efforts. Based in ESPN’s New York office, Mellon reported to George W. Bodenheimer, who was, at that time, senior vice president, sales and marketing.

Prior to joining ESPN, Mellon was vice president of programming for TeleCable at the multiple systems operator’s corporate office in Norfolk, Va. His responsibilities included programming acquisitions for TeleCable’s systems, programming supplier relations, management of programming policy and planning, pay-per-view operations and development, network contract negotiation and business affairs distribution policy.

Mellon joined TeleCable in 1983, having previously served as staff attorney for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the Division of Advertising Practices (1982-83). Prior to the FTC, Mellon served as a assistant director of government relations and field operations for the National Cable television Association (NCTA) (1981-82). Before that he was staff attorney for the house Subcommittee on Telecommunications Consumer Protections and Finance (1980-81).

Mellon served on the boards of several organizations that included Howard University’s School of Telecommunications as a member of the board of advisors. Mellon was also an adjunct professor in communications law and regulations at Hampton University.

Mellon was one of the founding members of the National Association for Multi-ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC). Mellon earned a B.A. degree in English Literature and Film Studies from Vassar College, an MBA from the college of William & Mary, and a Doctor of Jurisprudence from Indiana University (Bloomington).

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