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Barbara Proctor, CEO 
Proctor & Gardner Advertising 

The first person awarded a service loan by the Small Business Administration in 1970, Proctor was also the only woman at that time to own a full-service advertising agency. She has set certain moral standards for her professional practice and refuses to accept clients whose products are not family-oriented. Among the Chicago-based company's accounts: CBS, Kraft Foods, and Alberto-Culver.

been high-tech firms, and California's Silicon Valley companies have led the pack. By their own admission, that entrepreneurial atmosphere has helped companies like Micro D, ASK Computer, and Tago Inc. to get started. "It wasn't until I got to Wall Street that I encountered resistance," says Micro D's president Mecca. "It was very stodgy."
      
Women who, because of family connections, end up running companies encounter different problems - for one thing, persuading people to take them seriously. Donna Wolf Steigerwaldt didn't start out with quite the control over her company, Jockey International, that, say, Lillian Katz has always had over hers. As the third member of the second generation of her family to run the company, Steigerwaldt faced the challenge of managing the company's transition to a new CEO and a new style while preserving the dynamism that garnered Jockey 70 percent of the men's underwear retail market in the U.S. She took over in 1978 when her brother, who had taken over in his turn from their father, retired. Furthermore, little in her work history - as an insurance broker until 1954 - had prepared her for the task. Nevertheless, after five years, the company has survived and prospered in that transition.

[[3 columned table]]
| COMPANY | REVENUES | EXECUTIVE |
| --- | --- | --- | 
HEAVY INDUSTRY REVENUE LEADERS
| 1. Hudson Oil Co. | 334 | Mary Hudson |
| 2. National Industries Inc. | 80 | June Collier |
| 3. Zollner Corp. | 75 | Margorie E. Bowstrom |
| 4. Central Pipe & Supply | 53.9 | Diane S. Johnson |
| 5. Michigan Rivet Corp. | 16 | Dorothy Knuppenburg |
| 6. Panhandle Producing Co. | 9 | Irene S. Wischer |

MEDIA REVENUE LEADERS
| 1. The Washington Post | 801 | Katharine Graham |
| 2. Wells, Rich, Greene Inc. | 527 | Mary Wells Lawrence |
| 3. Copley Press Inc. | 210 | Helen K. Copley |
| 4. Tatham-Laird & Kudner | 133 | Charlotte Beers |
| 5. Cadwell Davis Partners | 66 | Frankie Cadwell |
| 6. Crain Communications | 60 | Gertrude Crain |
| 7. Proctor & Gardner | 20 | Barbara Proctor |
| 8. Tobe Associates | 5 | Marjorie S. Deane |

COSMETICS REVENUE LEADERS
| 1. Estee Lauder Inc. | 1,000 | Estee Lauder |
| 2. Mary Kay Cosmetics Inc. | 304 | Mary Kay Ash |
| 3. Christian Dior New York | 215 | Colombe Nicholas |
| 4. Diane Von Furstenberg | 200 | Diane Von Furstenburg |
| 5. Redken Laboratories Inc. | 86 | Paula Kent Meehan |
| 6. Adrien Arpel | 18 | Adrien Arpel |
| 7. Georgette Klinger Inc. | 13.5 | Georgette Klinger
Kathryn Klinger |
| 8. Cosmetics Specialty Labs | 8 | Marilyn Hennessee Krebs |
| 9. Aida Grey Cosmetics Inc. | 7 | Aida Grey |

FASHION REVENUE LEADERS
| 1. Jockey International Inc. | 250 | Donna Wolf  Steigerwaldt |
| 2. Christian Dior New York | 215 | Colombe Nicholas |
| 3. Diane Von Furstenberg | 200 | Diane Von Furstenberg |
| 4. Liz Claiborne Inc. | 166 | Elisabeth Claiborne Ortenberg |
| 5. Maidenform Inc. | 100 | Beatrice Coleman |
| 6. Judy's Inc. | 39.6 | Marcia Israel |
| 7. Henri Bendel Inc. | 30 | Geraldine Stutz |
| 8. St. Gillian companies | 30 | Kay Unger |
| 9. Flexatard | 24 | Glida Marx |
| 10. Belle France | 20 | Jane I. Schaffhausen |
| 11. Echo Scarfs | 12 | Dorothy Roberts |
| 12. Flah's Inc. | 11 | Barbara H. Freed |
| 13. Ruth Scharf Ltd. | 8 | Ruth Scharf |

A variation on the same theme resulted in the elevation of Beatrice Coleman to the helm of Maidenform, the nation's largest privately held women's underwear company. She took over after the death of her husband Joseph in 1968, but had worked for the company since 1938. Having started out operating a sewing machine, she advanced up the corporate ladder to positions in advertising and marketing before her husband's death, and since then has presided over the diversification of the company from a manufacturer of basic "foundation garments" to the sportier, more colorful lines of today. (Maidenform may be unique in boasting two female top executives in its 60-year history. Ida Rosenthall founded the company with her husband William - starting from a small dress shop where brassieres were given away to customers as a courtesy - and ran the sales and finance end of the business.)
     
Central Pipe & Supply Company in Houston represents yet another way in which women demonstrate their abilities in business - by joining with their husbands to make a new venture go. Central Pipe & Supply is jointly managed by Diane Seelye Johnson and her husband, Leonard, who is president. As executive vice president, she's responsible for the insurance, tax, and banking operations of the company. (At age thirty-nine, Johnson decided a degree in accounting might be useful and gamely enrolled in college.) The Johnsons founded their company almost eight years ago, with a meager $1,000, but drew heavily on Mr. Johnson's long experience in the fuel industry. Last year, Central Pipe & Supply grossed nearly $54 million. Part of the explanation behind the company's rapid growth may be its liberal bonus-incentive program: Employees share in 50 percent of the profits. "That way," says Diane Johnson, "everybody is working for the profits directly."
     
June Collier's story is similar, but her company role is very different. Trained in plant production, Collier joined with her husband, Ben, to found National Industries, which produces wiring assemblies for automobiles, appliances, and aerospace equipment - for everything, in her words, "from cars to cruise missiles." She is now the president and chief executive officer of the company. While her husband is in charge of the industrial design of their products, she supervises the manufacturing end. She is often found at company factories in T-shirt and jeans, a hands-on experience not yet shared by many women. 
     
Frankie Cadwell, CEO of Cadwell Davis Partners advertising firm, never gave herself the chance to become disenchanted climbing the ladder to success. A newly minted MBA in 1973, Cadwell and a partner immediately opened their own firm, netting $25,000 in billings their first year. Her New York City-based agency billed $66 million in 1982. Among her clients are the Norcliff Thayer division of Revlon, Conde Nast, Shulton, Johnson Mathey, and four divisions of Johnson & Johnson.
     
These women represent the tip of a shallow but extremely wide iceberg. Women are making impressive gains, but the potential is even more impressive. At this point women-run companies represent only 3 percent of the economy, but there are growing numbers of women who have earned higher degrees and gained valuable working experience over the past ten years. In addition, venture capitalists have shown an increasing interest in women-run companies, making that important first step in financing easier to negotiate. "Venture capital is really opening up for women," says Kristen Olsen, the owner of Triangle Ventures, a small venture-capital firm in Sunnyvale, California. A competitor states the case even more strongly. "I frankly feel that the women we see in management are stronger, better people than the men," says Jim Anderson of Merril, Pickard, Anderson and Eyre, a Palo Alto-based venture-capital firm. "Maybe it's because they've had to fight harder to get where they are, but all of the women we've backed have been stellar. If you know of any women who want to start a company, send them my way."
     
Some of history's most exciting moments occur when opportunities suddenly widen at the precise time people are ready to grasp them. Women entrepreneurs may be about to realize one  of those moments.  =

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June M. Collier, 
President & CEO
National Industries Inc.

Collier was appointed by the Secretary of Commerce and the U.S. Special Trade Representative to the Industrial Policy Advisory Committee in 1981. A staunch conservative, she believes the U.S. government should impose a 20 percent across-the-board tariff on all imported manufactured goods and then use the revenues to bolster the Social Security system. Current trade policies put Americans out of work, she claims, warning that "unless we do something, there won't be a U.S. industrial base within a few short years."

42 Savvy/February 1984

Photograph by Paul Robertson

February 1984/Savvy 43