Enlisted development tools Published April 14, 2008 By Senior Master Sgt. Frank Shaffer 176th Wing Human Resource Advisor KULIS AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, Alaska -- The Air Force Portal provides many resources to enhance your military career. As mentioned in last month's Air Guardian article "Reach for the Next Promotion," MyEDP is an excellent resource for the Air Force enlisted person's professional growth; specifically in providing information regarding the steps required to advance. One area from MyEDP that should be near and dear to all NCOs is the Enlisted Development Tools. On MyEDP, you will find three main topics listed on the right side of the page: Enlisted Development Tools, My Account, and Mentoring. These areas provide valuable information that can be used in the mentoring process. The first main topic, Enlisted Development Tools, lists links to the active Air Force Enlisted Career Path (nice to know, but the information is not accurate for Air Guard members) and MyEDP Summary. Of these two links, the summary page is most beneficial to Air Guard members. This page will give you a brief overview of your enlisted accomplishments. It includes current assignment, awards earned, PME completed and more. For the mentoring process, this page can give your mentor a good overview of your military background. The My Account section is broken down into three subtopics: Profile, My Journal, and Sharing. The Profile link simply allows you to edit your current MyEDP profile. My Journal allows you to create personal journal entries in one of 42 different Air Force-related topic areas. Examples of journal topics include: skill level training, PME, assignments, deployments and many more. This journal allows the user to document goals, note areas of development, or question a mentor about a given topic. A key element of MyEDP and mentoring is the Sharing tool found in this section. This allows the user the option to share his/her MyEDP with other Air Force or Air Guard members. In order to allow someone else access to your page, they too must have an established EDP account. Their access allows them to view your MyEDP data, and to add comments to your journal. The final topic under Enlisted Development Tools is Mentoring. The names of any members with MyEDP accounts, who have allowed you to access to their EDP, will appear in the box. This is also the access point to view their EDP. To do so, simply highlight their name and select view. Their MyEDP page will open and you will now be able to view their page and use the tools mentioned previously in this article. MyEDP is a valuable resource for enlisted members' use in planning and seeking career guidance. The online resource under Enlisted Development Tools provides yet another option for mentoring. In the next installment of this series we will focus on specific ways to use MyEDP to mentor Air Guard personnel.