The entrepreneurs

By Erica Noonan, Globe Staff | May 8, 2005
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

NEEDHAM -- The real estate firm is called Century 21 The Alexanders. As the name suggests, it's a family business -- but not just one family.

Owners Robert Byrne and his wife, Kathleen, bought the business from his mother, Doris Alexander, who retired after more than two decades.

Today, the firm employs three mother-daughter teams, and in the office near Needham Center, home life blends in with talk of new homes.

Joan MacEwen, 74, started selling real estate when her three daughters were in grade school. In 1986, her middle daughter, Debbie Anastas, now 45, joined her in the business.

Sensitive to the challenges facing working mothers, Joan helps Debbie keep an eye on her two children, now 12 and 14.

''There is one thing I tell people about working so closely with your daughter," said MacEwen, who recently retired. ''You really do have to get along with each other well."

The real estate business has always attracted women seeking flexible hours and independence. But the open-ended nature of the job can be misleading. The demands of an overheated market and technology that lets customers see houses 24/7 on the Internet has made residential real estate intensely competitive and demanding.

''It's 100 hours a week of availability, and you can't tell a client, 'Sorry, I don't have a sitter,' " Anastas said. ''They see a house there on the computer screen, and they want you to show it to them immediately, and you need to be there for them."

The work-life balance is often more complicated than for women with 9-to-5 desk jobs, the agents said. Clients want constant cellphone and e-mail access to their brokers, and most weekend days are consumed with open houses and client showings.

In Needham -- where the current median single-family home price is $642,000 -- stakes, and commissions, are high. More than ever, the mother-daughter duos said, you need a partner you trust.

Most of the older-generation moms said they remember a day when few women worked outside the home. But their daughters, even those who have become mothers themselves, say they never considered not working.

The mother-daughter teams have varying arrangements. Some work independently but offer coverage and backup for each other; others are official partners, sharing commissions and client responsibilities.

Becky Gorman, 24, is the youngest of the group, choosing to partner with her mother after graduating from Boston College in 2003. What has her mom taught her so far? ''To be confident in what you are doing," Gorman said. ''To be positive."

Karen Gorman, 53, joined the firm with her daughter in October 2003, switching to real estate after working for an insurance company for more than 20 years. Having raised Becky and her brother, Michael, at the same time, she remembers the constant tussle.

''You have a sick kid with a fever who you're worried about, but you still have to balance a corporate image," she said. The camaraderie at the real estate office means mothers don't have to hide their personal concerns.

Laura McDonald Hasenfus, 33, earned her real estate license last month and brought her own two children, Emma, 5, and Timothy, 3, along for a quick stop at the office one day last week.

She'll be working with her mother, Jane McDonald, who has been with the firm since 1989. McDonald says she is eager to combine her years of experience and negotiating skills with her daughter's fresh perspective on Generation X home buyers.

''Many of the people buying houses today are Laura's age, and she's lived here all her life and she really understand their needs," she said.

Laura, who also works as a special education preschool teacher, said she is equally excited to partner with her mother. ''Working with your mom is a special thing," she said. ''It's not something most people ever get the chance to do."

Women Gaining Degrees and Ground

Source: U.S. Department of Education

• Women are educating themselves in areas once dominated by men.
• In 2000, about half of those earning bachelor's degrees in business were women.
• Twenty years earlier, women made up only 34 percent of business graduates.
• From 1980 to 2000, women earning four-year degrees in engineering rose by 109 percent, while the male numbers decreased by 5.3 percent.
• In the area of mathematics, the number of women earning related degrees has risen by 16 percent, and men's numbers have fallen slightly.
• At the same time, women have gained even greater ground in nursing and teaching careers, both female-dominated fields.
• In 2000, women made up 76 percent of those graduating with a degree in education.
• Likewise, nursing degrees were largely conferred upon women with men making up only about one percent of those receiving nursing degrees in 2000.

Women Forge Their Own Path to Success

BY MELANIE CSEPIGA
This story ran on nwitimes.com on Sunday, May 1, 2005 12:14 AM CDT

Raised in a climate of seemingly unlimited career options in a world far different from that of their mothers -- and light years away from their grandmothers -- women today are forging careers in law, engineering, law enforcement, real estate and other fields traditionally filled by men.

When Harvard University President Lawrence Summers seemed to imply in a January address that there are differences between females and males when it comes to the sciences and math, he sparked a national debate that continues to rumble in the halls of academia and the workplace.

Although women have made inroads into such fields as architecture, engineering and construction, their presence is still a minority one.

That's why, when Sandra Joseph, 36, heads to a construction job site as she often does as a civil engineer with Christopher B. Burke Engineering in Crown Point, she hears catcalls.

"I get comments on the job site. Any woman would. It doesn't affect my career," she says.

The Florida State University graduate acknowledges that there were few women graduating in her field at the time, but she and other female engineering graduates benefited from more job interview opportunities than did the males, she said, perhaps due to diversity quotas.

"I thought I would be at a desk doing design. I didn't expect to go into the field, but I gravitated toward it," Joseph says, adding that she has never been made to feel that her gender was an issue. "Actually, on the job, I had more issues with age earlier in my career," she said.

In a 2000 address, Dr. Sheila Widnall, former secretary of the U.S. Air Force, astrophysicist, master pilot and MIT professor, discussed the barriers women face in engineering, including subtle comments from male university faculty members that imply women do not belong in the field.

"We must recognize that women are differentially affected by a hostile climate. Treat a male student badly, and he will think you are a jerk. Treat a female student badly, and she will think you have finally discovered that she doesn't belong in engineering," she says, adding, "It's not easy being a pioneer. it's not easy having to prove every day that you belong. It's not easy being invisible or having your ideas credited to someone else."

During one week in February, Hewlett-Packard's flamboyant female CEO Carly Fiorinaa was out after six years, but Brenda Barnes was in as the first female CEO of Chicago-based Sara Lee Corp.

Such stories make headlines, because women who make it to the top of major corporations remain a rare breed.

In an article in the Oct. 28, 2003, issue of Business Week, Laura D'Andrea Tyson, dean of London Business School, looked at why so few women make it to the top rung of the corporate ladder.

Tyson said that both experimental and survey research show that men are much more likely than women to negotiate for pay, promotions and recognition in the business world. That is supported by Professor Linda Babcock of Carnegie Mellon University, who, in her writings, has noted that only 7 percent of the female graduates from master's degree programs at Carnegie negotiate for a higher salary than that offered, while 57 percent of male graduates do.

Such statistics are no surprise to Anita Dygert-Gearheart, CEO of Campagna Academy in Schererville.

"To be able to negotiate from a position of strength is a learned skill," she says, adding it is not one generally taught to females.

Likewise, Denise Dillard, CEO of Workforce Development Services Inc., in Gary, said females are not taught how to close a deal. Both she and Dygert-Gearheart were trained in negotiations and certified by Harvard University.

Today's courtrooms, in which it is not uncommon to see female attorneys question female law enforcement officers before female judges, may have adjusted their dress code, but club rules often still apply.

"I'm here to tell you that the good ol' boys club is alive and well," Catheron Paras, a Merrillville attorney largely practicing criminal law, says.

"In dealing with other attorneys and judges you have to be careful. It's a predominantly male business. You really have to portray yourself as strong, twice as strong in negotiating agreements."

Paras says that she begins with a friendly attitude, but if she sees it is not working, "I will not allow one of the good ol' boys club to treat me differently. I stand up for myself."

So Happy Together

This article was published in REALTOR Magazine on: 05/01/2005

FAMILY MATTERS
BY CHUCK PAUSTIAN

So happy together

JoAnne Poole, CRS®, e-PRO®, an associate broker with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Glen Burnie, Md., learned years ago the importance of treating family time with the same accountability as business appointments.

Early on, she says, an office manager helped her put her balancing act in perspective: Since you wouldn’t cancel a meeting with a client, you shouldn’t reschedule time with family either. Poole notes, however, that sometimes a bit of compromise is needed to keep family commitments—like the time she asked her husband John to detour to a last-minute client meeting before going to dinner. “You learn how to make your personal life work with your business life,” she says.

“You can’t give everything you have to real estate,” she continues. “I have to give back to my support network, which is my family.” In addition to her husband, she has two grown sons, John Jr., 31, and Mykle, 26.

Making time for her family is made easier because of the freedom and flexibility her career affords her, she says. “John and I never have worked the same shift. John [a retired driver and salesperson for Entemann’s] would go into work early in the morning and be home in the evenings. I could arrange my schedule around [the children’s] school hours and days off,” she says.

The fact that Poole has preserved her personal time is still impressive, though, given the many opportunities for intrusion her busy schedule affords. In addition to managing her real estate business, which totaled about $5 million in sales and 38 transactions in 2004, Poole is the current president of the Maryland Association of REALTORS® Inc.; past president of her local association, the Anne Arundel County Association of REALTORS®; past president of the Maryland Chapter of the Women’s Council of REALTORS®; and past regional vice president of WCR.

“Much of what I’ve been able to do on a volunteer basis doesn’t take away from my family,” says Poole, noting most meetings and events occur during the day. “If a commitment does involve evening hours, I always ask John if he wants to go, so we can spend time together.”

Through her work as a mentor in her office and in the Maryland state association’s rookie program, Poole says she encourages other practitioners, particularly younger ones, to develop similar approaches for balancing family time. When they face a conflict between work and family, she says, “I tell them it’s OK to tell customers that it’s your day off.”

NAR is promoting work-life balance through a new “FamilyTime” program it produced with Million Dollar Roundtable, an insurance industry group. Pricing for the DVD begins at $5.

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