Sergent Michael Crowe,
Iraq
Meet Mike - When I heard the wounded Marine’s story of how he was injured by a detonated improvised explosive device in Iraq, I got chills. It is hard to imagine what he and his family must have gone through. My newly formed mentorship with this young hero, who is living at Camp Lejeune Wounded Warriors Battalion East in Jacksonville, North Carolina, began in mid September 2013.
His name is Mike; at the time we began to work together he was 28 years old and was being treated at the traumatic brain injury clinic in Jacksonville and was preparing to retire from the Marine Corps at the end of 2013 after five tours of duty. He entered the Marines at 17 ½.
I worked with Mike on polishing his resume and job searches - all in preparation to apply for positions with hiring companies. In addition, we worked on interviewing skills to ready him for civilian job interviews.
This young man’s journey was to shift from active duty to civilian life. What I offered him was a guiding hand to enter into corporate America. He is the bravest 28 year old I know and to have endured and seen all that he has in the past ten years is amazing.
Mike led projects while in the Marines for the past ten years. We leveraged his past experience to show how he has managed much of the project processes required by a Project Management position. Mike is working on his PMP certification as well. His attitude is fantastic. I am happy to report Mike landed a position as a Senior Project Manager\ Infrastructure Solution Architect with LTI Logic Technology Inc. Congratulations Mike!
His name is Mike; at the time we began to work together he was 28 years old and was being treated at the traumatic brain injury clinic in Jacksonville and was preparing to retire from the Marine Corps at the end of 2013 after five tours of duty. He entered the Marines at 17 ½.
I worked with Mike on polishing his resume and job searches - all in preparation to apply for positions with hiring companies. In addition, we worked on interviewing skills to ready him for civilian job interviews.
This young man’s journey was to shift from active duty to civilian life. What I offered him was a guiding hand to enter into corporate America. He is the bravest 28 year old I know and to have endured and seen all that he has in the past ten years is amazing.
Mike led projects while in the Marines for the past ten years. We leveraged his past experience to show how he has managed much of the project processes required by a Project Management position. Mike is working on his PMP certification as well. His attitude is fantastic. I am happy to report Mike landed a position as a Senior Project Manager\ Infrastructure Solution Architect with LTI Logic Technology Inc. Congratulations Mike!
Wayne A. Dunlap, PMP and Active Duty Acquisition Officer
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
Update on Wayne Dunlap - Wayne was featured in PMI's Credential Passport April 2016 issue, read it here
Congratulation Wayne for recently passing your PMP exam.
Here is Wayne's journey in his own words.
After the application was accepted; I scheduled my exam date three months out to make sure I had enough time to plan. Prior to application acceptance; I took a course through Syracuse University to obtain the 35 credit hours but I knew this exposure was not enough for the exam but it did give me an introduction to the terminology. I started the true exam prep on June 01 2015. I created a plan in MS project that involved using the Prepcast followed by reading Rita's book, Head First PMP and then the corresponding chapter in PMBOK. I continued that routine everyday 7 days a week until I was complete with all resources.
I finished during July 4th weekend. At that time, I started Prepcast Simulator and at the same time I read all of PM Smartnotes articles and reviewed Lessons Learned from such sites as (PMZilla) and started reading Andy Crowe's book just to confirm I understood the terms completely. Additionally, I purchased Prepcast Formulas because I did not have enough confidence with the formulas. However, after finishing the 105 questions from this resource; I understood the formulas completely.
There were some areas that I had trouble (IE Time Management) but after several reviews; it made sense. After passing the first three simulated exams with a score of over 80 percent; I rescheduled the exam from 21 Aug to 6 Aug because I did not want to wait too long.
In the end, I took five full length exams from the simulator, Andy Crowe's full exam and Head First full exam for a total of 7 simulated exams.
I scored 80 or above on five of the areas and in the 70 percentile for the other two. The final week I continued to write my brain dump and review. Of note: when I conducted a recon of the test center. I actually went inside and talked to the workers; they showed me the lockers and the exam room and more importantly they told me how many sheets I will get for the brain dump (4 sheets). I used that information during my practice exams and it gave me more confidence for the true exam.
Exam day:
I was scheduled to take the exam at 5:30 p.m. but when I went there at 8:00 a.m. they said I could come in anytime I wanted so I went at 12:00 p.m.. I was fortunate because the room was packed and the admin decided to put me in a room alone it was the only room they had available and it was probably rare for that to happen. Finally don't forget to read the questions all the way. I spent 10-15 minutes creating a complex network diagram only to find out at the end the question asked for the float of the critical path.
That was time that I could have used to review. I only had five minutes to review my questions and I marked several for review.
I hope this help someone else.
Stay focused and resilient and it can happen for you.
Congratulation Wayne for recently passing your PMP exam.
Here is Wayne's journey in his own words.
After the application was accepted; I scheduled my exam date three months out to make sure I had enough time to plan. Prior to application acceptance; I took a course through Syracuse University to obtain the 35 credit hours but I knew this exposure was not enough for the exam but it did give me an introduction to the terminology. I started the true exam prep on June 01 2015. I created a plan in MS project that involved using the Prepcast followed by reading Rita's book, Head First PMP and then the corresponding chapter in PMBOK. I continued that routine everyday 7 days a week until I was complete with all resources.
I finished during July 4th weekend. At that time, I started Prepcast Simulator and at the same time I read all of PM Smartnotes articles and reviewed Lessons Learned from such sites as (PMZilla) and started reading Andy Crowe's book just to confirm I understood the terms completely. Additionally, I purchased Prepcast Formulas because I did not have enough confidence with the formulas. However, after finishing the 105 questions from this resource; I understood the formulas completely.
There were some areas that I had trouble (IE Time Management) but after several reviews; it made sense. After passing the first three simulated exams with a score of over 80 percent; I rescheduled the exam from 21 Aug to 6 Aug because I did not want to wait too long.
In the end, I took five full length exams from the simulator, Andy Crowe's full exam and Head First full exam for a total of 7 simulated exams.
I scored 80 or above on five of the areas and in the 70 percentile for the other two. The final week I continued to write my brain dump and review. Of note: when I conducted a recon of the test center. I actually went inside and talked to the workers; they showed me the lockers and the exam room and more importantly they told me how many sheets I will get for the brain dump (4 sheets). I used that information during my practice exams and it gave me more confidence for the true exam.
Exam day:
I was scheduled to take the exam at 5:30 p.m. but when I went there at 8:00 a.m. they said I could come in anytime I wanted so I went at 12:00 p.m.. I was fortunate because the room was packed and the admin decided to put me in a room alone it was the only room they had available and it was probably rare for that to happen. Finally don't forget to read the questions all the way. I spent 10-15 minutes creating a complex network diagram only to find out at the end the question asked for the float of the critical path.
That was time that I could have used to review. I only had five minutes to review my questions and I marked several for review.
I hope this help someone else.
Stay focused and resilient and it can happen for you.