ewborn found
that being one of Tech's first female students had its advantages: It
helped her land a student job at the library. Since her high school
trained its girls for futures as secretaries, she was one of the few
Tech students who could type.
t's unfair that
women are missing out on some of America's most rewarding and lucrative
jobs. But it's more than a fairness issue. Unless more women show
interest in science and technology, critical jobs will stand
empty. Experts are predicting a shortage of scientists and engineers by
the year 2000, and there won't be anywhere to turn except to a labor
pool that is half female. There simply won't be enough white males to go
around.
Although women are flourishing in law, medicine and some areas of business, only 15 percent of America's scientists and engineers are women, according to the Task Force on Women, Minorities and the Handicapped in Science and Technology, in a national report prepared in 1989.
Tech is trying to do its part. There are now 2,816 women enrolled at Tech, compared to the two women on campus in 1952.
"We have come from nowhere to 23 percent women," says Jerry L. Hitt, Tech's director of admissions. "Women are seeing a technology degree as marketable. The world runs on technology, and that's the way it's always going to be."
Sue Elaine Spade, who received a master's degree from Tech in 1986, believes that a scarcity of role models keeps many young women from pursuing careers in science and technology.
"Some of it is the influence of people they are exposed to as they are growing up," she adds. "There is a lot of math anxiety on the part of elementary school teachers. And for girls, it's just not 'cool' to be interested in science."
Female Tech graduates are providing role models in ever- increasing numbers, and they are eager for a new generation of women to join their ranks.
"I always seem to be 'the first woman ever,' but there's nothing like the rewards of doing a job you really like," says Susan R. Clemmons, a petroleum engineer who graduated in 1968.
The six alumni on the following pages prove that women can thrive in technologically oriented, male-dominated professions, if they love their jobs and don't mind breaking through a few barriers. They are of different ages, professions and temperaments, but they all share core personality traits.
"Tech women are tenacious and have good discipline," says Shirley C. Mewborn, a 1956 alumnus and past president of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association.
"'Focus' is the word that best sums us up."
ewborn found
that being one of Tech's first female students had its advantages: It
helped her land a student job at the library. Since her high school
trained its girls for futures as secretaries, she was one of the few
Tech students who could type.
There are always problems when you are "the first," but Mewborn focuses on the positives. "Sometimes there are stereotypes to deal with, but there are also advantages. It's given me a higher profile, and that's been a real opportunity."
Since starting with Southern Engineering in 1957, Mewborn has risen through the ranks to become vice president of the Atlanta consulting firm. She's in charge of a 10- member department that develops and markets computer software for utilities.
After the birth of her two daughters, she stayed home long enough to see the girls through ballet and band. But she kept a hand in at Southern Engineering, working part- time, then assuming more responsibility as her daughters grew up.
I've learned that the way to get through a maze is not to worry about the gate that's closed," Mewborn advises female engineers starting their careers, "but to look for the other way out. Look for the opportunity, take it, and go."
JOB--Unemployed. Last: senior engineer, Gruy
Engineering Corp, Houston.
DEGREES--BS IE, Ga. Tech, '68.
AGE--44
MARITAL--Single
ACTIVlTIES--Professional bridge player; enjoys
knitting and reading.
HOMETOWN--Houston
lemmons is a
hired hand--a bridge hand, that is. The '68 Tech alumnus travels all
over the world as a bridge partner to tournament competitors who are
willing to pay her to beef up their advantage.
Clemmons likes the game and the time out of town, but it's really just a way to pay the bills. What she really wants is a job in petroleum engineering in her home town of Houston. Unfortunately, since the Texas oil industry has gone bust, there is little work for engineers.
"I'm competing for very few jobs," she admits. "Everything that comes up has 400 applicants immediately."
It's been two years since Clemmons and most of her colleagues were laid off, but she refuses to give up her job search. She enjoyed the work too much. "It was almost completely creative."
Clemmons has always been persistent. It was a crucial trait for female engineers in the 1960s. "Very few schools at that time even allowed women to major in engineering," she says.
After Tech, Clemmons spent four years in several frustrating jobs before finding a consulting company willing to give her the same salary and responsibilities that it gave male employees. Although the company was meticulously fair, its clients didn't quite know what to do with a female engineer.
"I traveled a lot, but people didn't wine and dine me like they did a man; they weren't going to make their wives mad," she recalls. "It got to be a lonely existence."
In rural areas, it was worse. "There were a lot of places where you never saw women eating alone or having a drink at a bar unless they were prostitutes; decent restaurants would actually ask you to leave.
"I spent a lot of time in hotel rooms getting room service."
In spite of the hard times, Clemmons has few regrets. "Sometimes I wish things could have been a little easier, but I've had great, creative work, and I've loved it."
JOB--Manager of architecture & strategic planning
for United Telecom/U.S. Sprint.
DEGREES--BA Math, Oberlin, '74. BS EE; Dayton
College, '79. MS EE, Tech, '86.
AGE--37
MARITAL--Single
ACTIVlTlES--Flautist; science education volunteer
work; president, Kansas City chapter of the Association for Women in
Science.
HOMETOWN--Elyria, Ohio.
n kindergarten,
Spade wanted to be a mother when she grew up. In high school, she
thought she'd be a teacher. Instead, she's a project manager at United
Telecom/U.S. Sprint's corporate headquarters in Kansas City, Mo.
"It's a wonderful job," she says. "It means toying around with ideas and identifying technology that can support whole families of systems that haven't even been thought of yet."
Spade has found her niche, but it took a long time to get there. After five years in government work, she broke away to earn a BS in electrical engineering. Her first engineering job was with a Louisiana manufacturing plant that brought her in as its first and only female manager.
"It was not a good experience," she recalls. "Because I was the only woman, there was lots of undermining and shuffling around. It was hard not to take it personally."
She left "shell- shocked" and landed an engineering job with a U.S. Sprint operating company in Tyler, Texas. After the parent corporation sent her to Georgia Tech to earn an advanced degree, she was brought to the company's corporate headquarters and has been tackling projects of increasing responsibility.
In her spare time, Spade works with children, partly as an opportunity to give them the encouragement her parents always gave to her.
"I had parents who were very supportive when I was growing up," she says. "I didn't know there were things that girls couldn't do."
JOB--Principal of Stanley, Love-Stanley,
architecture/planning interiors/construction management firm.
DEGREES--BS Math, Millsaps College, '72. BS Arch,
Ga. Tech, '77
AGE--39
MARITAL--Married to architect William J. Stanley
III, Arch '72.
ACTIVITIES--Trustee, Georgia Tech Alumni
Association; member, Alumni Advisory Board of Tech's Office of Minority
Education Development; member, American Association of Architects,
National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Junior League of DeKalb County,
Atlanta Urban League Guild and the NAACP; board member, Literacy Action
Inc.
HOMETOWN--Meridian, Miss.
hen Love-Stanley
and her sisters were growing up, their parents were determined that the
girls would make something of themselves. "College was a priority,"
Love-Stanley says. "There wasn't much money for frills, but we had our
books and we knew what we had to do."
At Tech, she worked 30 hours a week and took a full course load. She also became the first black female architect in the Southeast.
"It's what I really wanted, and it's what I loved doing. That's what pulled me through."
After graduation, Love-Stanley and husband William formed their own firm. They now have 16 employees and their projects range from work on a MARTA Station to master planning for the Federal Reserve Bank.
Love-Stanley spends much of her time grappling with nuts-and-bolts issues--negotiating complex contracts and organizing how and when projects will be completed.
"I've learned to speak, speak, speak up, and I'm able to stand toe-to- toe and duke it out if I have to," she says. "Sometimes being a woman gives me an edge--you can take people by surprise."
JOB--Corporate finance associate for Bear, Stearns
& Co. Inc.
DEGREES--BS IE, Ga. Tech, '83. MBA, University of
Pennsylvania, '89.
MARITAL--Married to Allan F. Sides, ME '83, General
Electric customer service manager.
AGE--29
ACTIVITIES--Volunteer tutor for elementary school
students; vice president, Wharton Club of Atlanta; 1990 Zoo Atlanta
fund-raising captain. Enjoys golf and sailing.
HOMETOWN--Montgomery, Ala.
ides is
concerned about the nation's educational deficit, so twice a week she
leaves her office in a glitzy Atlanta high rise to spend the lunch hour
tutoring children at an elementary school. It's not the ultimate
solution to the complex problem, but it's a start.
"If every Rhonda Sides did this, think how much better it would be," she points out.
This kind of active, pragmatic approach to tough challenges has served Sides well. When she graduated from Tech in 1983, she threw herself into her job at Management Science America, sometimes working 70-hour weeks to learn the Atlanta computer company's software. She started out as an account manager, four years later was writing business plans and developing budgets as the assistant to the senior vice president of sales.
After earning her MBA, Sides settled back in Atlanta, working in the high-pressure world of investment banking. She's now the only woman on a seven-member team that researches and negotiates transactions valued at $50 million to $100 million.
Being in situations where women are in the minority has been a part of Sides' life since she was a high school math whiz, but it has not diminished her opportunities.
"I have found that bottom-line performance is usually the issue. There are things said that throw me through the roof, but I can usually laugh off the occasional off-the-cuff remark," she has discovered.
There was one notable exception, which occurred during Sides' first job. She was instructing a class of middle- age men in the use of new computer equipment. "They knew nothing, and had to learn about the equipment to keep their jobs," Sides recalls. "I was about to start the first class when a man raised his hand and said, 'Did anyone ever tell you that you shouldn't wear yellow?' "
To her eternal regret, Sides was left speechless. "The whole three- hour drive home I kept saying to myself, 'I just want to forget this.' "
Her minority status certainly didn't hold her back at Tech. She was elected student body president, only the second woman to hold that post in Tech's history.
"I just don't see how anyone can really care [that you are a woman] if you can do everything you are supposed to do, smile and have a great attitude," Sides says.
JOB--NASA astronaut; current assignment: mission
specialist on Spacelab-J.
DEGREES--BS BI0L, Ga. Tech, '75. BS ME, Auburn
University, '77. MS and PhD ME, University of Alabama,
Huntsville. '85.
AGE--37
MARITAL--Married to Mark Lee, NASA
astronaut.
ACTIVITIES--Fellow, American Society of Mechanical
Engineers; member, Omicron Delta Kappa, Pi Tau Sigma and Alpha Xi Delta,
social volunteer, Junior Girl Scout troop assistant leader. Enjoys
flying, ice skating, aerobics, bicycling, snow skiing.
HOMETOWN--Huntsville, Ala.
ots of working
couples take business trips together. What makes Davis different is that
she and Mark will do their traveling in space. Both are astronauts
training for a 1992 NASA mission. "It helps that Mark is an astronaut,"
Davis says. "He understands what a time-consuming job it is."
But she has no complaints. The work is demanding, but endlessly varied. To train, Davis does everything from flying jets to studying oceanography. She has logged hours training underwater in weighted suits. "I've got to do the best job in the space program," she says.
Davis never aspired to be an astronaut. When she grew up in the 1960s, the idea of a woman in space was beyond most people's imaginations. Now she encourages women to try for work that is traditionally "for men only." "Women can hold their own in any field. There are no jobs anymore that are just male."