Not Just an Auditor
A Unique Perspective On Life
Advocating For The Needy
From Bombs To Bronze
The Educator As Artist
The YWCA's Teen Leadership Depends On The TWINs
1998 TWIN Honorees

    When 89 women gather on May 15 to be honored in the YWCA's 19th annual Tribute to Women & Industry, they will celebrate their own professional achievements as well as their companies' attention to workplace equality. They also will be giving back to their community because proceeds from TWIN support the programs of the YWCA, an organization that has been dedicated nationally to the advancement of women and racial justice since 1858.

    "These 89 women symbolize advancement, achievement and making a place for themselves in an ever-changing world," says Janie Davis, executive director of San Diego’s YWCA. "It’s celebratory and none of us does enough of that. And it encourages corporations to say to these women, 'You did just great and we need you badly.'"
    TWIN began this celebration in 1980, when such community-wide acknowledgment of women's achievements in business was virtually nonexistent. Today, TWIN is the largest and most prestigious event in the county to recognize "women who have made a significant contribution to industry in managerial, executive or professional roles." Its continuing success testifies to the fact that our ever-changing world has, indeed, come a long way.
    "You have to project yourself back almost 20 years," says Lucia Smalheer, director of the YWCA's community outreach who spearheaded TWIN in 1980. "Then there were not that many women in significant management positions, and those who were had really pretty much pioneered what they had done. And there was no recognition for them at all."
    Smalheer gathered some of those pioneers in 1980 to correct that lack of recognition. Cheryl Luther, then a vice president at Wells Fargo Bank, Kaye Hobson at Home Federal, attorney Cynthia Rushing and CPA Joan

Drulias from Signal Corp. headed the committee that came up with the TWIN program. They followed a model originated by the YWCA in Ridgewood, N.J., that saluted women professionals, executives or managers who had made significant accomplishments within their companies, while it also saluted the companies for their efforts in providing opportunities for women.     "We also wanted to encourage young women through TWIN to look at a broader option of career choices," recalls Smalheer, who retires this June after 20 years at the local YWCA. "We wanted them to know they didn’t have to just be a nurse or school teacher. And the fourth goal was to make a connection between the YWCA and the corporate community for fund raising."     The program has been an absolute success on all four fronts. Over 18 years, TWIN has honored 1,586 women and dozens of companies, and the event has raised more than $1 million for the YWCA's programs. And helping to broaden the vision among young women, this year a half-dozen teen-age women involved with the YW's Teen Leadership Center will join professionals at the luncheon tables.     But perhaps the biggest impact TWIN has had is to help spur the advancement of women in the workplace.

Lucia Smalheer, director of the YWCA's community outreach, has been a TWIN leader since 1980.

    "After the first several years, the most rewarding part to me was that within many companies, there became an in-group that began promoting TWIN, and therefore, positions in management for women," says Smalheer. "Women were talking with top executives, saying 'It looks like we don’t have a TWIN honoree this year,' so they began advocating positions for women, and that was really neat. They also began to do what we always wanted companies to do, which was to honor the woman inside that company."
    Terry B. Hall, asset manager at Burnham Pacific Properties and vice chair of this year’s TWIN, was an honoree in 1995.

Terry Hall, asset manager at Burnham Pacific Properties and vice chair of this year’s TWIN.

"I felt so honored by my company, that they took me seriously, were proud to have me, and felt I was a strong contributor," says Hall. "It felt good to be acknowledged by my company." She believes the program also helps boost morale in any company that participates.     For Nancy Williams, program manager at the San Diego Housing Commission, chairperson for this year’s TWIN and a 1995 honoree, the acknowledgment was important because it congratulated her in the community. "While the housing commission has certainly acknowledged my efforts as a professional, receiving the TWIN award had special meaning to me because it came from the community, too."     It takes a virtual community to put on the TWIN program each year. Suzanne McClain, special projects

manager at the YWCA, coordinates the effort, which involves about 75 volunteers who work together for nine months.
    McClain first calls a steering committee of about 10-12 people, all past TWIN honorees. This year’s committee includes the San Diego Housing Commission's Williams, who serves as chairperson; Burnham Pacific's Hall, who serves as vice chairperson; Sharla Barry of Kaiser Permanente, who heads the Corporate Contacts committee; Katie Engler and Donna McClay, both with Ogden Environmental and Energy Services, Luncheon/Awards; Marla Farrage, BFGoodrich Aerospace/Aerostructures Group, Mailing; Sheryl Palmer, Grossmont Bank, Program; Diane Pearson, Recon, Public Relations; Allison Tarter, Hughes Network Systems, Reception; and Jana Smith, BFGoodrich, and Jayne Janda Timba, Rick Engineering, are teaming on Registration.
    The committee chairs, in turn, contact other TWIN honorees. They gather the additional volunteers it will take to screen nominees to ensure they meet the managerial criteria and to put on the annual luncheon.
    "These people are busy women who agree to take their time one day a month for meetings plus all the time it takes to chair these committees; they actually do something," says McClain. "They believe in what the YWCA does and they take this nine-month commitment very seriously."
    One of the committee's first tasks is to locate a corporation that will underwrite the expenses of the luncheon. This year’s underwriter, giving $10,000 to the cause, is BFGoodrich. The other big corporate sponsor this year is Hughes Network Systems, which is giving $7,500 to underwrite and host a reception for honorees that takes place prior to the luncheon.
    Honorary chairperson of TWIN this year is Bob Rau, president of BFGoodrich Aerospace/Aerostructures Group, formerly Rohr until the merger in December 1997. Rau has been personally involved in TWIN for five years, while Rohr was one of the original corporate supporters.
    "I think TWIN was particularly insightful when it was first adopted those many years ago," says Rau. "I think women continue to make tremendous strides in the business community and I think it’s just a very positive program, a very appropriate kind of recognition of outstanding women in business."
    Rau also points out that TWIN honorees probably experience "good networking opportunities" because of their involvement with other honorees. "And with the recognition all our nominees get in our own company publications, that just gives them broader exposure within the company, which could lead to additional opportunities for them," he adds.

Smalheer also notes that TWIN really can help educate CEOs and companies about the talents available among honorees. "You couldn’t look through one of those TWIN booklets and not consider that one company could pirate people from another," she says. "It’s sort of like an executive search without having to pay the big bucks."     And the networking aspect available to TWIN honorees has not been lost on Williams or Hall.     "I’ve met a lot of very civic-minded women through TWIN who are professionals in their own right who want to give back, too, so they come to the table with the same sort of community spirit as I have," says Williams. "It’s fun working with them, it’s good for networking, and it’s good for the YWCA."     Hall says the very first year she was asked to help on a committee, she was wary. "But after that, I was hooked because I really enjoyed these people," she says. "I can’t say enough good things about Suzanne McClain who is absolutely invaluable to the whole process; Nancy Williams has been fabulous to work with, and we all actually have a good time together. I also get to break out of my little real estate world, to see what’s happening in other industries, in other companies. I may get some leads off this, somebody else may get leads off me. But that’s not what I’m in it for at all."     She says she wants Burnham Pacific's name out there in support of TWIN's purpose. But the most important reasons for Hall's commitment are getting acknowledgment for women in the business

Nancy Williams, program manager at the San Diego Housing Commission.

world and supporting the domestic violence program of the YWCA. "That's closest to my heart."
    Davis says TWIN's monetary contribution to the YWCA programs "has been extraordinary." Past honorees also have played various roles in the agency. "The past year, for example, the entire Solar Turbines TWIN group helped us open a brand-new My Sister's Closet (thrift shop), so their contribution can go well beyond the Tribute to Women & Industry," she says. "But it’s really fascinating to watch their growth as well. We believe we’ve had a little bit to do with that by calling attention to how much corporations need the involvement of a very diverse work force," says Davis.
    The job goes on.

Bob Rau, president of BFGoodrich Aerospace/Aerostructures Group.

Rau says women have made "tremendous strides since 1980, but it’s not quite yet universal, though I think it should be. It is very close to universally accepted today that women can be very, very capable professionals and managers and equally effective as any male. And any company that doesn’t recognize this really harms itself; it’s not good business."     He also points out there were a lot fewer women pursuing careers in business in 1980 than there are today. He recalls a recent conversation with the dean of the business school at UC-Irvine, who told him almost 50 percent of the students in the graduate school there in 1990 were women, compared to about 4 percent 10 years earlier.     "That would imply that somewhere out in the future, there's a possibility that 50 percent of managers and professionals that come through business schools will indeed be made up of ladies," says Rau. "Go back 10 years when only 4 percent of people seeking such careers were women, that’s a big change. At higher levels today, we still have very few women, but you look down in the middle ranks, and you'll find a lot more females; that’s where it’s headed."     But today, such achievement remains special.

    "We still see only 5 percent of the top executive positions nationwide filled by women, so there's a lot of work to do," says Davis. "But extraordinary progress has been made, and this is the time the YW takes to really say to corporations, 'Just keep it up, keep finding those good women, because it is making a difference to your product.'"
    And TWIN keeps leading the charge.

Helen Adams is equally at home with talking high-tech venture capital and swinging' on the dance floor     From her organized-by-color wardrobe to a perfect balance sheet or a Western swing dance routine, Helen Adams relishes order and symmetry. "When I was a kid I organized M&Ms by color," she recalls.     A partner in the accounting firm Deloitte & Touche, Adams lives in a world of numerals. But don’t call the 1991 TWIN honoree "just an auditor." The world of accounting has changed drastically since the days of the basic audit, she says. While the firm still handles numerous accounting tasks, the audit department's work has expanded to include strategic planning. "We’ve moved from being keepers of the past to (looking at) where is the company going," she says. Adams works closely with top managers, but at the same time remains a skeptic watching out for shareholders and company directors. Her tasks are varied. On a recent Tuesday, for example, Adams discussed local technology companies with out-of-town venture capitalists over lunch.     A 16-year Deloitte & Touche employee — she started with Touche Ross right out of college — Adams is fiercely loyal to her firm. She praises the firm's family-friendly policies, its commitment to workplace diversity and its support of civic work. Adams is vice president of finance on the board of Senior Community Centers, a

Helen Adams, a partner in the firm of Deloitte & Touche, observes the expansions to the changing world of accounting.

YWCA director and former chair of the TWIN awards program. "I support the YW's program," she says enthusiastically. "I believe in their mission of empowering women and eliminating racism."
    Adams' well-ordered personal life took an abrupt change in 1991 when she and her husband adopted five nieces orphaned after the death of their parents. Seven years later, Adams says she can’t imagine life without the girls. At 39, she's both mother and grandmother. Adams fiercely protects her weekends from the demands of the office, devoting Saturdays and Sundays to her three youngest, still-at-home daughters — Kelly, 12; and identical twins, Erin and Ashley, 11, who play soccer and softball with a passion. Both Christina, 26, and Katie, 20, are serious basketball players.
    For a woman used to perfection, she's had to accept a little disorganization along with family life. "I’m a 110 percent kind of a person and it’s hard for me to do less than 100 percent," she says. "The house isn’t as clean as I'd like. I constantly juggle to make sure I spend enough time with my kids."
    One night a week, Adams sets her responsibilities aside and steps out on the dance floor. A serious dancing amateur, she steps and swirls through Western swing dances at the Starlight Dance Theater. Swing is orderly and structured — perfect for the well-organized Adams. Dancers combine nine basic steps, yet have 9,000 variations to choose from. "Dancing allows me to use my creative side as well," she says. "I can forget the stress and come back to work fresher" after a few hours on the dance floor.
    Even dancing can’t give Adams what she'd really like: more time. "I wish that someone could give me another three hours in the day," muses Adams. "But I think if I had the three, I'd probably want three more."

— Libby Brydolf

Like most San Diegans, Marjorie Caserio loves the outdoors. But what she sees in nature is perhaps a little different from what most of us experience. When Caserio sees a red tide, she knows it’s phosphorescence, a luminescence caused by the absorption of radiation. After 25 years as a chemistry professor, Caserio says that understanding science has given her a unique perspective on life.     "The world around me became extraordinarily interesting when I learned about what plants produce, how the environment, elements and forces work together," says Caserio. "It was a whole new approach and revelation about one's existence — and it’s so rational."     When she was first exposed to chemistry in high school in England, Caserio was immediately drawn in. "It was so fascinating and so germane to our lives that I simply had to know more about it," she says. After graduating from Chelsea College at the University of London, Caserio came to the United States to pursue a doctorate in chemistry at Bryn Mawr College. She says as limited as educational opportunities were for women in science in the United States, there were even fewer in England.     Today, Caserio sees gender equity in the pursuit of undergraduate degrees in chemistry, but says women are greatly underrepresented at the graduate level. "There has been a steady increase in the number of women who graduate with bachelor's degrees in chemistry," she says, adding that the gender gap becomes noticeably wider at the masters and Ph.D. level. "I was

Marjorie Caserio sees the world through a scientist's eyes.

the only tenure-track woman in the chemistry department for the 25 years I was at UC Irvine."
    Caserio was recognized as a TWIN recipient in 1992 when she served as vice chancellor of academic affairs at UCSD. She says it was gratifying to be acknowledged for her contributions to higher education, but receiving the award became especially meaningful to her when she met the other TWIN recipients. "It was wonderful to see other women representing such a broad range of activity in the community," she says.
    Today, she is a professor emeritus at UCSD who still teaches and retains an interest in University activities. "What’s wonderful about the academic world is that you never really leave," she says. Caserio is active in the American Chemical Society and University business. "If there's a role where I can be useful, I do it," she says, adding that she served as interim chancellor after Richard Atkinson was appointed president of University of California system.
    Caserio continues to explore the world through chemistry, but also enjoys technology and the arts. "I’m constantly buying books and computer games, and I dabble in piano, which I’m lousy at, but it’s all very exciting."

— Jennifer Coburn

In 1997, when Linda Goodwill was named a TWIN honoree, she was busy putting together San Diego’s first housing cooperative at HOPE Community Development Center. The acronym stands for Housing Our People Economically, and for Goodwill, that pretty much says it all. As HOPE's founder and executive director since 1991, she has worked hard to help low-income families live in comfortable, decent housing.     "A housing cooperative is the first step toward home ownership," she says. "It offers participants training in how to make decisions regarding their living environment. It empowers the tenants." The cooperative she was developing in the summer of 1997 became a reality later that year. Now tenants in the Lincoln Park community in Southeast San Diego meet once a month to make decisions about their housing project, discuss their options, their problems and any issues of concern.     In the past, Goodwill says HOPE would buy low-income buildings that needed work and rehabilitate them, then manage those buildings with the help of the tenants. Now HOPE's mission has expanded to include building new housing, and Goodwill is waiting for approval of her most recent grant application for federal funds. This time her focus is housing for senior citizens and the handicapped.

Through HOPE, Linda Goodwill gives encouragement to low-income San Diegans.

    Under Goodwill's stewardship, HOPE manages two properties. Two more are in escrow and should close later this year. Both are in poorer areas of San Diego, one on Logan Avenue and the other on Franklin. "They need a lot of improvement," says Goodwill. "We have the grant funding to do this and are working with the San Diego Housing Commission." At the same time HOPE begins its rehab, it also will recertify tenants to make sure their incomes still qualify them for affordable housing.
    Goodwill also has turned a concerned eye to the children living in her projects. In March she introduced the concept of youth mentorship to the board of one of her housing cooperatives. "I want teens to serve on our boards, too. I saw their energy that night and I’ve seen it in other training sessions. These kids are under 18, but they stand up and give presentations and voice their input. I think it gives them a sense of responsibility, not just for themselves, but also for their homes, their living environment, their neighbors and the community at large," she says.
    Also for children is the playground now under construction at the Lincoln Park project on Ocean View Boulevard. Goodwill says residents and their children will be responsible for overseeing the playground because that’s the way things work in cooperatives — everyone shares responsibility.
    With all this under her belt, Goodwill is still shy about taking credit for her good deeds. Without her husband and children's constant support, she says, it would have been hard to pursue her dreams. Fourteen years after she worked with her church to build a school in San Diego, Goodwill has become a powerful housing advocate for San Diego’s neediest citizens.

— Eilene Zimmerman

A woman pauses in the afternoon shade of a holly oak tree at the Laurel street entrance to Balboa Park. She stands surefooted with a trowel in one hand and a "hen and chicks" blossom in the other. Her ankle-length skirt, shirtwaist caught at the neck by a cameo brooch and sturdy boots speak of another time. Yet this woman, molded in bronze, belongs in this place. She has been brought to life here by sculptor Ruth Hayward.     Hayward is careful about little things. Always has been. When she set out to sculpt Kate O. Sessions, often called the "Mother of Balboa Park," Hayward did her homework. She researched the archives at the San Diego Historical society, read horticulture notebooks kept by Sessions, talked to descendants of San Diego’s first "city gardener" and studied old photographs. Little details matter.     This care shows in the lines of Sessions' face, depicted by Hayward at about the age of 50, and in the way the shirt untucks as the left arm raises the

Ruth Hayward did extensive research for her sculpture of Kate Sessions in Balboa Park.

succulent to the light. "I hope when children see the statue they get the message that one person can really make a difference," Hayward says.
    Hayward has been making a difference for some time now. Back in 1987 she was honored with a Tribute to Women & Industry (TWIN) award by the YWCA for her work as an engineer at General Dynamics/Electronics and as a volunteer at Rachel's Women's Center for the homeless. Hayward says the award was quite special. "I thought it was not only recognition by the community but by my company, because they nominated me."
    One research project Hayward participated in during her 38 years at GD/E involved locating radio emitters to aid in pinpointing enemy locations. And she says the culmination of her career was work on underground detection of explosives. "We did go to foreign lands to look for terrorist explosives," Hayward says. "We located things that probably saved hundreds of lives."
    In addition to her engineering work, Hayward always has been active in the community. "I started working at Rachel's in 1978 when somebody asked me if I could install a circuit for an electric range," Hayward says. "I was on the board for 20 years and tried to help any way I could, sometimes with maintenance, sometimes with fund raising."
    Hayward now divides her time between work with "Project Wildlife," a rehabilitation group that takes care of injured mammals and birds, and as vice president of "City Beautiful," founded in the mid-1950s, whose first big goal was to save Kate Sessions Park from being developed into a housing tract. Oh, and Hayward sculpts a bit.
    Her newest statue, unveiled April 1, will stand sentinel for years to come, a reminder of the character of both women.
    One passerby strolling into Balboa Park points to the fine bend of the elbow in Hayward's tribute to Sessions. And skaters circle the figure, tracing her waist with their fingertips before moving on.

— Darcy Alvey  

For many individuals, retirement equals the closing of a book. But for Eve Lill, it means opening them. Quite a few, in fact — whether a tourist's guidebook, a software manual or sheet music. During her 23-year tenure at Grossmont College, Lill's positions ranged from instructor to vice president of academic affairs. Yet since her retirement in 1990, she has focused on her personal goals in art, culture, computers and writing; and even experienced firsthand what it’s like to be a student herself.     "I started doing the things I had postponed because I didn’t have the free time," she says while taking a break from her current work as owner, buyer and partner at the Signature Gallery in Del Mar. "I’m studying piano; I have set goals to learn to play the piano to the point of being able to entertain." Lill's pursuit of piano reconnects to her younger days when she performed as a singer and guitar player. "I thought it would be fun at some point to play the digital piano in public," she adds. At some point, Lill hopes to become bilingual in Spanish as well.     "For the last seven years, I have been studying the language and traveling in South and Central America, Mexico and Spain, so I would have an opportunity to meet people, study more of the culture and practice the language."

Eve Lill pursues new challenges as an educator, artist and student.

    Another opportunity she latched on to was obtaining the computer literacy needed in today’s high-tech world. "For years I had secretaries who did all that work for me, but I thought it was time I got into the 21st century," she says. She now has reached that goal, and uses software programs like Quicken to streamline her work at both the art gallery and in the field of investment and income property development.
    "Keeping our businesses afloat during these last few years has been very difficult," she comments, "but we’ve managed. I oversee quite a number of properties that my partners and I own. So I stay quite busy."
    Lill gently laughs when asked to differentiate between who she is now and who she was back in 1985, when as administrative dean of instruction at the college she received the TWIN award.
    "I am still that same person," she says. "I received that award because I was a leader, and still consider myself a leader." This ongoing leadership has led Lill to her next venture, authoring a book for fellow language scholars.
    "I am looking to make a contribution through a book on learning Spanish or another language from a student's point of view," she says. "I hope that at some point it will be published and can be used as a text or for people who want to broaden their experiences. So I continue to be an educator. But I am also using the aspect of having been a recent student.
    "So often teachers are masters of their field — what is very simple to them is very hard for someone who is not a master. So if I can write it from a student's perspective, it will hopefully be more meaningful."

— Lora Watters

    Six young women who participate in the YWCA's Teen Leadership Center in San Ysidro will join the professional honorees at the TWIN luncheon this year. "We are very excited to have all these girls invited to TWIN, each sitting at a table purchased by businesses," says Jessica Russell, director of the teen leadership programs at the YWCA. "It will be great practice for them to talk to the adults."
    The Teen Leadership Center is one of the YWCA programs that TWIN proceeds help support.
    "TWIN is very important to our program; we depend on it," says Russell.
    The Teen Leadership Center also is supported by grants from San Diego County as well as private foundations. The center's mission is to "provide a safe and secure environment for youth to learn alternatives to juvenile delinquent behavior with the partnership of the schools, business community, positive peer role models and adult leadership."
    The center is located in the Villa Nueva Apartments complex in San Ysidro, a large project with 390 units, all subsidized by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The region is one of the most impoverished areas of San Diego County, containing more than 30 percent of the low-income housing for the entire county. "It’s a very crowded complex with thousands of people, which adds to crime in the area and a lack of opportunities," says Russell.
    The Teen Leadership Center began there in 1978, and currently operates in the complex a drop-in program Monday through Thursday from 4 to 9 p.m. About 300 teens ages 12-15 use computers for their homework, receive tutoring and participate in various enrichment programs, counseling and life skills programs and advanced leadership workshops.
    Teens at the center recently visited Donovan Prison where inmates presented a program to encourage them away from crime. They also have heard speakers from various industries tell them about career opportunities.
    The six girls attending the TWIN luncheon also will represent the San Ysidro Teen Leadership Center at the national YWCA convention in Pittsburgh this July. At the convention, a national teen assembly will elect a national teen council of 10 girls who will hold office for a year. Three teens from San Diego’s YWCA are serving this year.
    "Since the early 1980s, our YWCA has had at least one teen on the national teen council," says Russell. This council speaks out on YWCA policies and "influences from a teen standpoint what adult members are deciding."
    "Our teens get a lot of training in public speaking and self-esteem issues, so we’ve always had a really good presence at the convention," says Russell.
    The national convention gives the local girls an opportunity to meet peers from all over the U.S., while for many it also is their first trip on an airplane, stay in a hotel and meal in a restaurant "where they're not ordering off the lit-up board behind the counter," says Russell. After the convention this year, the six girls also will spend five days in Washington, D.C.
    The same six who attend this year’s TWIN luncheon will share information with adults about the convention, why they're going and what it means to them. "We’re hoping TWIN women see the importance of sending these girls, since we have to ask the community for help."
    It’s one more way TWIN honorees and companies give back.

— Priscilla Lister