Exchanges within the mentor-protege relationship, the effect of age and gender on that relationship, and the effect of that relationship on career progress and subsequent mentoring behavior are here studied for the first time in the context of a state government agency. Twenty-five males and 25 females were selected randomly from among 250 supervisors in the Kansas Department of Human Resources. Each completed the Career Influences Survey, an instrument created and assessed for internal reliability and construct validity especially for this study. Findings yielded a profile of mentoring behaviors received and provided by these supervisors, indicated a moderately significant relationship between the amount and kinds of mentoring received and provided, and revealed that men and women receive and provide similar amounts and kinds of mentoring (but that women provide more to other women than to men), that most supervisors report more primary (altruistic) reasons for mentoring than secondary (self-oriented) reasons, that supervisors' mentors were further from them in age than are their proteges and that the first mentor they encountered had the greatest influence on them. (Author)