With a little help from her friends - women entrepreneurs

With A Little Help From Her Friends

In their efforts to reach the top ranks in their careers, "women typically have not had the same recognition, the same advancement opportunities, or the defined career paths that men have had," says Don C. Frisbee, chairman of PacificCorp, which is a diversified electric-utility company based in Portland, Ore.

"You can't deny the data," Frisbee says. He cites statistics that show women earn only about 60 percent of what men make in the same job categories. Moreover, although women make up over 45 percent of the work force, they hold fewer than 30 percent of managerial and administrative jobs.

After considering such facts, Frisbee and 18 other members of the Oregon chapter of the American Leadership Forum (ALF) launched a mentoring program to help Oregon women overcome barriers to career advancement. The program was undertaken by the chapter's new members in 1987 as a community-service project in accord with the goals of ALF, a national leadership-development organization.

The immediate goal of the Oregon chapter's 18-month pilot project was to assist 50 women by pairing them with mentors who would act as informal advisers, providing support, counseling, and access to professional networks not customarily available to the women. The long-term goal was to develop a program that, if successful, could be continued and duplicated.

An ALF subcommittee put together a half-day training session to prepare the 50 community leaders recruited from corporations, small businesses, education, and government for their mentoring roles. The mentors chose "learning partners" from applicants recruited through business, educational, and community groups, and the news media. Each pair's progress has been monitored by an ALF member.

While the project will not be fully evaluated until sometime this year, ALF members have been seeing positive results, including several spin-off programs. One of the most unusual involves a rural high school with high teenage-pregnancy and dropout rates; students are being paired with women mentors who hold responsible positions in their community.

Mentoring helps women learn to do more than just deal with gender barriers, according to Nancy Wilgenbusch, president of Marylhurst College in suburban Portland and head of the project. "[It] can help them assess their strengths, their abilities, and opportunities. Mentors can often point out ways to get around obstacles and suggest ways to gain experience."

Her learning partner, Diane Machunze, who is working on a doctorate in education policy and governance, agrees. But the greatest advantage is that the experience has opened her eyes to previously unseen opportunities, she says. "I really had not thought of being in a leadership position in education, but that is my goal now. I want to be in a position to use my skills to improve the quality of educational programs."

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