Why so few women?

Omaha is a city on the rise, with the symbols evident in the changing skyline: Qwest Center Omaha, Holland Performing Arts Center and now TD Ameritrade ballpark.

The city fathers, whose roots stretch deep, can take credit for these and other projects. But the city mothers?

They're not at the table. Not one woman sits on the exclusive 13-man Heritage Services board known for getting some major civic projects off the ground.

Nor are women very visible in other positions of power here. They hold two of 18 seats on the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce's executive committee. Among 100 employers of 500 or more, women hold none of the chief executive spots, unless you count government: two metro-area public school superintendents and Douglas County's chief administrative officer.

Furthermore, women hold a fraction of elected seats. Jean Stothert's election this year to the Omaha City Council broke a 12-year all-male lock and made her just the sixth woman — there have been 59 men — to serve since the 1957 city charter.

The nonprofit Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Women's Policy Research ranks Nebraska near the bottom, 45th, in its most recent measure of where women stand in managerial and professional occupations in each state. Iowa ranked 43rd. That's despite both states ranking high in the portion of women in the work force.

Ask women and men in leadership about the poor rankings and they cite a variety of factors: the relatively short history of women in roles positioning them for leadership; a community culture of leadership by men with money, power and connections; and the choices women themselves make along the way.

Nearly all of those interviewed agreed: female leaders matter. No one thought that women should be promoted solely because of gender. But several said that including more women generates alternative ideas — ideas that potentially are more female- and family-friendly — and offers role models. Increasingly, it's viewed as good for business.

A 2008 study by Catalyst, a nonprofit organization that aims to expand workplace opportunities for women, indicated a correlation between the number of women on a company's board and its number of female corporate officers.

Catalyst's analysis of Fortune 500 companies concluded that, in four of the five industries studied, having more female directors and corporate officers resulted in better return on equity and total return to shareholders than experienced by companies with low female representation in the upper ranks.

Jim Clifton, CEO of Gallup, said that in business, mixed groups are more attractive to prospective clients — especially on the East Coast, where he lives. Companies don't want to look behind the times or like they're drawing from a shallow pool of ideas.

“Here in Washington,” the D.C.-based Clifton said, “if you show up with three white males, you lose.

“From IBM to the Pentagon, the most sophisticated, intellectually strong American organizations are very mixed.”

In all, more than 30 prominent Omaha women from a variety of sectors — politics, business, education, medicine and law — were interviewed for this article.

Several spoke only off the record because they viewed the topic as too toxic to their careers.

“This is a topic that can be a dangerous one in Omaha, Neb. A lot of us are pretty fearful,” one business owner said.

“I still have to live here,” said a woman from a prominent Omaha family.

The views about the degree to which women hold power varied. The women seemed divided along a line that reflected their ages and whether they had taken an entrepreneurial route or climbed a corporate ladder.

A common theme among women in their 50s was this: They may have entered through a traditional door, but skill, pluck and a willingness to take risks, to sacrifice and to work hard won them top positions.

“Maybe I've been lucky enough or smart enough to find the organizations where I've had that fit. I've not had to be overly burdened by worrying about gender,” said Kathy English, the first chief operating officer of Children's Hospital & Medical Center.

Or if women owned their own businesses, they hadn't faced as many ladder rungs.

“I've never worked in that big corporate setting,” said Linda Lovgren, who founded Lovgren Marketing Group about 30 years ago. “I've always been the person in charge of my destiny. And to some extent, that makes a pretty big difference.”

Women at mid-career in their 30s and 40s didn't see their options as limited. They felt they could make time for family and not jeopardize their careers, and they pointed to helpful spouses and family-friendly workplaces as a key reason.

In contrast, many women in late-career stages measured substantial gains from a generation ago, when job choices seemed winnowed to nursing, teaching or clerical work. Yet many were disappointed that women had not appeared more in top leadership ranks given decades of hard work. And once at the top, they found themselves somewhat alone.

Sometimes it meant boning up on topics such as sports and trying to blend in. Sometimes theirs was the only female voice at a board table, and they felt invisible.

That's not to say Omaha women haven't benefited from some important male mentors who opened doors, offered good advice and pushed them out of a comfortable spot into a higher-profile position. Many were thankful for the men who served as career game changers.

Pam Hernandez is one. Last year, the former high school English teacher became the first female executive vice president of Woodmen of the World Life Insurance Society, marking a milestone in the company's then-118-year history.

The lack of women at the top perplexes her.

“I know the numbers look bad. I don't know what it's going to take,” Hernandez said. “But I know so many incredible women with leadership skills around town that ... it's not for a lack of talent.”

Indeed, there have been — and continue to be — women in prominent leadership positions in Omaha.

Women have led hospitals, banks and universities. They have run their own businesses and major companies such as the old Northwestern Bell, where Jan Stoney went to work as a 19-year-old entry-level customer service representative in 1959, then shattered the glass ceiling nearly 30 years later.

They are attorneys and surgeons and engineers; they are chief financial officers, chief operating officers and executive vice presidents. They are — at Westside and Council Bluffs — public school superintendents.

Yet women's gains in the workplace so far haven't translated often into visible corporate and civic positions. They might be tapped for nonprofit board positions but, as President Connie Ryan has found in 17 years at Streck Laboratories, the clinical lab products manufacturing company her father founded, they are not often asked to serve on paying corporate boards.

Ryan believes that is because it is hard to maneuver into high-level positions as a woman — something not unique to Omaha. She's a member of a national group of business leaders over age 50 — she is 57 — that each year meets at Harvard University.

“In that group, there are three women and 165 men,” Ryan said.

A Catalyst analysis of women in business indicated that women in 2008 accounted for 46.3 percent of the U.S. labor force and held 50.6 percent of management and professional jobs. But the numbers dropped off from there: Women were 15.7 percent of corporate officers in Fortune 500 companies, held 15.2 percent of those companies' board seats, and were among 6.2 percent of top earners. Only 3 percent were CEOs.

Ryan blames the dropoff in part to women who opt out because of work-life balance, but also to a business bias against working mothers and to beliefs about how women should lead.

“Aggressive women aren't looked kindly on,” Ryan said. “We're supposed to be nice.”

That has been the thesis of many gender studies, including one of Fortune 1000 female executives. According to a 2007 Harvard Business Review article about that and other gender studies, nearly all of the female executives “rated as critical or fairly important that they develop ‘a style with which male managers are comfortable.' ”

By many accounts, including some of the men interviewed, Omaha feels gender differences more acutely.

* * * *

Omaha has a community culture rooted in a male business elite that in 1895 founded one of the city's oldest service clubs — the Knights of Ak-Sar-Ben — and more recently ponied up $43 million through Heritage Services to help fund the new north downtown ballpark.

That's a small group of invited members who efficiently organize, fundraise and bring to completion civic projects, including some of those most identified with the area's quality of life. They have included the Strategic Air & Space Museum near Ashland, the Qwest Center Omaha and the Holland Performing Arts Center.

When it came time to build a ballpark, they met behind closed doors with city officials.

Paul Landow, who served as chief of staff to then-Mayor Mike Fahey, said the ballpark and other high-level discussions involved no women from outside City Hall.

“When you decide to build a ballpark and you need private contributions to the tune of (tens of millions), there are not women sitting in the room at the table talking with you,” Landow said.

That echoes the dynamic Patrick McNamara described in his 2008 dissertation comparing Portland Ore., with Omaha. McNamara, director of philanthropic services for the Omaha Community Foundation, described Omaha as a more traditional, conservative-leaning, business-friendly city run by a small group of corporate leaders.

“Women in leadership positions are rare in Omaha,” he wrote. “The community power of Omaha can be summed up as elite control by corporate leaders.”

The embodiment of that control is Heritage Services, which has a female president, Sue Morris, who serves as an important gatekeeper and project developer. But the real power rests with Walter Scott Jr., chairman, and the board includes chairmen and CEOs of Omaha business institutions such as Union Pacific Railroad, Peter Kiewit Sons' Inc., First National Bank and Mutual of Omaha.

The Ak-Sar-Ben board of governors remains a symbol of wealth and status in Omaha, though its charitable impact has diminished since the high-roller days of horse racing.

The Knights of Ak-Sar-Ben Foundation has two levels of membership that require an invitation by a selection committee, an annual fee — $7,000 for entry-level councillor tier, $25,000 for senior-level governor tier — and prominent business standing.

A governor generally must be a CEO. Among the 20 current governors is one woman, Jane Miller, who is the chief operating officer of Gallup.

There are five women who are councillors on Ak-Sar-Ben's 24-member board: the CEOs of Lincoln Financial, Midwest Maintenance Co., Union Bank, GWR Wealth Management and Borsheims Fine Jewelry.

It's easier to join the Greater Omaha Chamber board, which has 13 women out of 80 members and two women among the 18 on the executive board. Each pays $125 in annual dues plus a fee that starts at $385 and rises with the size of the company.

The chamber has had one female president: Lovgren in 2003. She said joining the board was a tough sell to other women, who told her they were too busy running businesses and families to add another responsibility.

Chamber and Ak-Sar-Ben representatives say they recognize the shortage of women and are trying to rectify it.

“Our organization feels very strongly about engaging new leaders,” said Beth Greiner, president of the Ak-Sar-Ben Foundation. “It's fair to say the pool of women ... is a pool that isn't as large.”

That's the reason Dick Bell, the chairman and CEO of architecture-engineering company HDR, cited in defending who has seats at the Heritage Services board table.

What woman, he asked, is in a high enough position to earn a place there?

A case could be made for Susie Buffett, whose foundation last year donated about $64 million.

But Buffett, like her father, Warren, has operated more independently. Her chief focus is the educational success of poor and minority children.

Buffett declined to comment for this story.

Another daughter, Lisa Roskens, chairman and CEO of the Burlington Capital Group, has expanded the investment firm her father started but doesn't consider herself “a power player.”

“I don't view the world that way,” she said. “I don't need the credit. I don't need to be on the front end of things.”

She said her father, Michael Yanney, is better suited to a board such as the Heritage Services board because of his longtime community connections.

One of the Heritage members, Mike McCarthy of the McCarthy Group investment firm, acknowledged there are too few women at the top. He said it's a matter of time, and that philanthropic engagement by women would follow their financial success.

“There are more women — professional, educated, positioned to lead our businesses — if we'll recognize and train and promote” them, McCarthy said.

He said the civic community could be more open about including younger women and men, and “should be open to other voices.”

McCarthy said the number of highly visible civic projects achieved has “been the result of a great group of men carrying the load.”

“But it seems to me there's a great opportunity in the next generation to have women emerge into leadership positions.”

* * * *

When Sister Maryanne Stevens, president of the all-female College of St. Mary, examines the Omaha landscape, she said the lack of visible women reflects “a more complex set of issues and history than just saying the males are running the city and they won't let the females in.”

At play, she said, are the roles of being wife and mother and juggling those with careers.

And improving the number of women in top-ranking positions, experts say, will involve companies changing how they view women who dial back their careers to raise children or serve elderly parents.

Ann Ashford had her first child at age 37 and had to leave a job she loved almost a decade later when she was asked to spend one-fifth of her time traveling overseas.

“The way business is traditionally conducted — and it's very traditionally conducted in Omaha — the choice to have a family doesn't mesh well with senior leadership,” said Ashford, whose son was 9 at the time.

Her choice reflects the many decisions women make even before they start families, as they choose college majors and career tracks that take a future family life into account.

The life-changing events of marriage and having children have almost inverse effects on men and women, as those stages are associated with higher wages for men and lower wages for women, according to the 2007 Harvard Business Review article on women in leadership.

An earlier article from the Harvard Business Review explained, in part, why: 37 percent of highly qualified women versus 24 percent of highly qualified men leave work voluntarily at some point in their careers. When those women have children, 43 percent leave.

A bigger factor leading women to quit was whether the job was satisfying or meaningful.

“When women feel hemmed in by rigid policies or a glass ceiling,” Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce wrote in the Harvard Business Review article, “they are more likely to respond to the pull of family.”

In other words: It's not worth the family struggle when the job disappoints, though of course this choice is often reserved for families that can afford to scale back.

Clifton of Gallup agreed that child care solutions can be worked out. He said women's biggest obstacle is “being in organizations where you have a really thick glass ceiling.”

“If (women) can get through that,” he said, “families seem to be able to work out the day care problems.”

Men's reasons for leaving are typically different: a career change, starting a business.

The off-ramp time for women is short — about 2.2 years on average, according to the business review. But in that time, women lose an average of 18 percent of their earning power. That rises to 37 percent when they spend three or more years outside the work force.

Companies can take actions to blunt the impact of family leaves. At the Deloitte global accounting company, for example, a 16-year-old program allows workers to leave for up to five years but stay connected through company-sponsored training, mentoring and ad-hoc assignments.

Tess Fogarty is not worried about what time without a paycheck will cost down the road.

Eight years ago, she was the high-profile, always-on-call voice of Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey. The position offered a springboard to a future in politics or public relations. But in 2005, Fogarty quit to resume a photography business.

She and her husband, Jim Sledge, had struggled to start a family, and Fogarty thought it might help if she got off the fast track. It did. She is now the mother of two children age 2½ and an infant son.

Fogarty, 39, said she plans to plug back into campaigns and believes she's not so much on an off-ramp as in a different kind of training.

“The art of negotiation is something I have mastered,” she said. “You can't read it in a book; you just have to sit down with a 2-year-old.”

In contrast is Mary Tesar, who at 58 is Omaha Public Power District's division manager of nuclear support services at Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station.

The biology major started at the utility as a laboratory helper in 1973 and was steadily promoted, working a lot of long days while raising two sons. Her husband took the boys to the doctor and got them to 5 a.m. hockey practices.

Tesar, who supervises 270 people, still puts in at least 50 hours a week and is on call 24 hours a day. That's the kind of schedule the job demands and will continue to require of anyone — man or woman — who takes it, she said.

But Tesar measures progress from when she entered the utility's North Omaha power station as the only woman, aside from two secretaries. She was stared at in the break room and was told she was taking a job away from a man. She let the comment go.

Today, she sees an environment where teamwork is stressed and more women are entering OPPD and advancing.

“The future is bright.”

Contact the writer:

444-1136, erin.grace@owh.com

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