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How often do you take a vacation to get away from your usual workplace routine to enjoy a totally different experience?  I did.  It is part of my life business:  getting away to a new environment.  After this trip, I was refreshed, relaxed, and ready to resume my activities inManhattan.

Spring break from teaching at Baruch took me to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California.  I stayed with my niece Tomi Sue and her cats, dog, and horse.  Below is my photo album of images from a wonderful time with family and the new friends I’ve made after many trips to the area.

One of the first things I did on Tomi Sue’s five acres was to walk around looking at the flowering plants—like white daffodils—and the wildflowers that were blooming.  On Sunday, we went for a lovely Easter dinner at Tony and Dana’s, Tomi Sue’s sister, who live in the wine country of Napa Valley.  Of course, the food was excellent as was the wine.

Usually when I’m in the area, I go toYosemiteNational Park, about an hour and a half away from Tomi Sue’s house.  However, on Tuesday when Tomi Sue and I wanted to see Yosemite one more time, rain was forecasted.  My niece suggested we explore the town of Hornitos, translated to “little ovens” in Spanish, which was closer and something we both hadn’t previously seen.  To get there, we drove through beautiful pasture areas where there were no gates to confine a cow and calf; instead, there are grates along the road that cattle cannot cross.

Hornitos, a town of 75 people, is located in the southern tip of the gold country of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  It is called the Gold Country because in 1849, gold was found in the area and soon people were rushing from all parts of the country—and the world—to strike gold.  The Gold Country is made up of a series of mines where prospectors panned for the gold that they thought would give them wealth.  Many did profit greatly; however, there were many who came away empty handed or in a jail like the one in Hornitos for jumping someone else’s mine.

Tomi Sue and I spent a long time in the cemetery reading the names and dates of the then diverse populations.  We saw headstones that included the Irish, Croatians, Portuguese, Chinese, and other ethnicities.  My niece pointed out that the brick creation could have been one of the “little ovens” that gave the town its name.

According to online sources like Ghost Town Explorers, Hornitos was one of the most prosperous mining areas in the Southern Motherload.  Do you like Ghirardelli candy?  Ghost Town Explorers’ caption of the remains of a business reads, “Domenico Ghirardelli Store, opened in 1856, he went on to become a chocolate manufacturer in San Francisco.  In 1929 the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company purchased the ruins of this general store and put a plaque on it.”

I couldn’t help but take this picture of looking at goats in their pasture through a free standing doorway and over an old wagon.  It framed for me the tranquility of the area and the preservation efforts of those who live in a very small historical town.

Our return trip took us higher up into the mountains.  Even looking at this picture makes me a little dizzy.  My niece is a great driver so I wasn’t afraid, just cautious since it was a very long way down.  On our way back, we stopped for a wonderful dinner at a restaurant where, if the clouds weren’t so low, we could have seen into the valley of California.  Ah, it’s time for me to not just get back to work but to plan my next trip to the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

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“I know I want to do something.  I say, ‘I’m a gonna do something, I’m a gonna do something, I’m a gonna do something.’” 

Simon Rodia did do something:  he single-handedly built what would become the world-famous Watts Towers, located in South Central Los Angeles.  The art work designed and executed by Rodia attracts people from around the globe because he believed that, “You got to do something they never got ‘em in the world.”  His artistic structures are unique—as he wanted them to be.

The Watts Towers are located in Watts, an area best known for the Watts Riots of 1965.  Thankfully, the Towers were not harmed even though the raging fires over blocks of stores called “Charcoal Alley” were only four blocks away from his work area and home.  (Read Diversity of Social Class at my blog for more details on the area). 

Specifically, Watts is about ten miles due south of downtown Los Angeles, California.  The open plains of the western U.S. attracted a diverse group of settlers and after the gold rush in 1849, the region earned statehood in 1850.  In Southern California, Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese arrived on ships docked in the local harbors of the Pacific Ocean; Swedes, Germans, and British drove wagons from the East; whites and blacks from the South took trains; and my parents traveled in cars from New York and Florida to meet, marry, and join others in a common quest to have the American dream, a dream that got passed on to their children.

Rodia immigrated to America at the age of 14, leaving behind “an impoverished southern Italy rich in artistic tradition,” according to the notes for the DVD “I Build the Tower,” a film by Edward Landler, the producer, writer and director, and Brad Byer, the maternal great-nephew of Rodia.  “He worked his way from New York state farmlands to Pennsylvania coalfields and Washington state where he married” and had children.  While living in the San Francisco Bay area, Rodia “became a drunk and disappeared in 1910, only to reappear in 1918 in Southern California—completely sober to begin work on the Watts Towers.”

In 1921, Rodia started in earnest building seventeen major sculptures constructed of structural steel and covered with mortar.  Working alone, the Italian immigrant spent the next 34 years building his towers single-handedly with only simple tools, and no machine equipment.  My mother wasn’t alone in donating chards of broken pottery, glass, and other items to be part of the mosaics on the towers, in birdbaths, and imbedded in walls.  There was interest in what Rodia was doing and not ridicule but awe at his daily work of building the towers.

In the 1950’s, the City of Los Angeles ordered the Watts Towers to be torn down.  A committee was formed to save the towers and in 1959, the results of a stress test demonstrated that Rodia’s towers were stable and thankfully did not need to be demolished.

The Watts Towers listed on the National Register of Historic Places are a National Historic Landmark, a State of California Historic Park and Historic-Cultural Monument No. 15, as designated by the City of Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission. 

Simon Rodia died on July 16, 1965, a few weeks before the Watts Riots.  It is the riots that have been connected to Watts and drawn negative attention to the area.  But it is the Watts Towers that are the most noted around the world and most admired.

“Sam will rank not just in our century, but rank with the sculptors of all history…” R. Buckminster Fuller, engineer, mathematician, and futurist, stated during his last interview that was filmed exclusively for “I Build the Tower.” 

A leader in his fields and known best for his design of the geodesic dome, Buckminster Fuller saw what the City of Los Angeles and many other institutions and individuals didn’t:  that Rodia “got to do something they never got ‘em in the world.”

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Today is International Women’s Day, a day of events to bring forward and reflect on the women who have made a difference in the political, economic, social, and other areas of their countries.

There are two ways that I am ‘celebrating’ International Women’s Day.  One is to read the March 12, 2012 issue of Newsweek which includes brief profiles of “150 Fearless Women in the World” and an article by Amy Chua on “The Rise of China’s Billionaire Tiger Women.”

From the start of reading on page 3’s “Periscope:  Symbols and Strength.  Women in the World” by Tina Brown, Editor in Chief of Newsweek and The Daily Beast, to page 72’s “My Favorite Mistake:  Aretha Franklin on the hat that created a worldwide sensation” the magazine enlightens and informs readers on the contributions women around the globe have made.

The second way I am reflecting on the roles of global women is by reflecting on the wonderful movie I saw last evening, “The Iron Lady.”  Meryl Streep won an Oscar for her performance as Margaret Thatcher, the first and only female British prime minister who is also the longest-serving (1979-1990) prime minister of the 20^th century.  Obviously, Thatcher was a strong woman to achieve such a high status in government.  Streep does a magnificent job of portraying Thatcher in her early 80’s but also as the younger woman during her years as the prime minister.  It is a movie worthy to see not just for her performance but to see the stamina it took for Thatcher to earn her role in British and global history.

Although I didn’t attend an event to mark International Women’s Day, I hope that by sharing these thoughts you will spark a reason for you to celebrate this day in your own way.

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Out of 20,000 new hires, the failure rate was 46% according to Mark Murphy, founder and CEO of Leadership IQ.  His research on this topic revealed that the reason the failure rate was so high was because 89% of the new hires demonstrated a lack of coachability, poor emotional intelligence, mixed motivation (to do or to be paid?), and temperament.  In only 11% of new hires was a lack a technical skills a failure factor.

“Hiring for Attitude” was one in the series of Thought Leader Teleforums offered by Marshall Goldsmith and Patricia Wheeler at Leading News.  Guest speaker Murphy talked about what he learned writing his most recent book, Hiring for Attitude:  A Revolutionary Approach to Recruiting and Selecting People with Both Tremendous Skills and Superb Attitude (McGraw Hill, 2011).  He summarized his book by saying, “Hire for attitude, train for aptitude” because “companies want attitudes that perfectly match their unique culture.”

Hiring for attitude is applicable at all levels within an organization.  For instance, CEOs fail so often because they misread the organization’s culture, Murphy said.  In my previous post “The Price of Ignoring Workplace Culture”, I write about why Jack Griffin, Chairman and CEO of Time Inc., was forced out after less than six months of starting at the company.  The basic reason for his departure was because he didn’t closely read the organization’s culture but instead moved forward with his own agenda without consulting with his staff.

“Who do you want by your side?” is one of the questions an interviewer can ask employees at their company use to discover the attitude needed by a job candidate.  By soliciting input from the staff, it is possible to create a checklist of the needed attitudes because the interviewer is looking for the psychological characteristics of what the company needs on their team.  For instance, Murphy shared the example of ‘brown shorts.’  Southwest Airlines brought in pilots for interviews.  One of the first things the interviewers did was ask the pilots if they would change from their suits and instead put on brown shorts.  Not all the candidates were willing to change their attire.  And guess what?  It was those who did put on the brown shorts who continued to be interviewed.  The others were eliminated because they didn’t have a sense of humor, one of the required attributes of a pilot at the airline.

Murphy’s “Five Part Interview” was an eye-opener.  Here’s what the interviewer will ask the candidate.  1)  Think about your job before your current one, name a key person there, and spell out the person’s name.  2)  Tell me about that person; describe them.  3)  How could you have improved your working relationship with that person?  4)  What would that person say were your strengths?  5)  What would that person say about your weaknesses (like not being open to coaching?).  The purpose of this is to generate self-awareness in the candidate and personal reflections on whether he is a good fit for the new company culture.

Researching the corporate culture of the workplace to see if you will be a good fit is the key to having the right —and authentic attitude—when you apply.  Don’t try on brown shorts if that is not something you want to do at an interview.  Be yourself and you will find the culture that is a good fit for your career.

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How long can you go without sending a text message?  Posting on your Facebook wall?  Playing a game on your smartphone?  Is it possible to take a break from your usual behavior to experience what it is like to live without technology tools?

“Chicago student takes 90-day technology break” is the headline of an article by Jonathan Bullington in the Chicago Tribune.  The journalist profiles Chicago student Jake Reilly who for 90 days, “cut himself off from cellphones and social media, a major life change for a guy in his 20s.”  Reilly even gave himself a title for his doing without technology:  The Amish Project.  His choice of a title reflects how he wanted time to lead a more traditional way of life.

Reilly realized that his use of “technology had taken over his life and the lives of his friends.”  He started his project by doing without his phone then cut ties to his usual modes of using technology which caused him to become “anxiety-ridden.”

Are you able to give up what for many is an online addiction?  How would you feel if you did go cold turkey for an hour, a day, a week? 

Reilly was quoted as saying it was “very scary” not to reach out to his friends via websites and to instead realize that it is just you and your thoughts.  He became more active and started to enjoy “face-to-face interaction more than he did posting on Facebook.”

After 90 days, Reilly resumed his use of electronic communications.  His project, however, made a statement that others can heed:  it is possible to cut back on texting, posting, and playing games on social media websites.

Users of the Internet have been ‘trained’ by corporations to take time to access and use social media websites so that they can be in constant contact with friends and family.  My “very scary” suggestion is to take time out from looking at a screen and, instead, take a look at the people in your life.  They are the ones to interact with at home, college, an event, the corner deli, etc.  And, while walking down the street, instead of looking down at a tiny screen, look around you to see and respect the other people who are part of your world.

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Thursday, I was shocked that when scanning the headlines of The New York Times, I saw an article entitled, “‘Mademoiselle’ Exits Official France” by Scott Sayare.  Prime Minister François Fillon addressed a memo to state administrators across France and “ordered the honorific — akin to ‘damsel’ and the equivalent of ‘miss’ — banished from official forms and registries.”

Wonderful, I thought.  Simply wonderful that France was finally doing what Gloria Steinman and others in the feminist movement of the 1970’s had managed to achieve.  I still remember the day that a friend was walking toward me with a big smile on her face and a magazine in her hand.  The first issue of MS. Magazine told the reader what being a Ms. and not a Miss or Mrs. meant and how it served to help gain the equality of women in the workplace and beyond.

I smiled thinking about the efforts that must have gone into the change in title for younger French women.  There were two main feminist groups championing the demise of Mademoiselle but there was push back from other women who felt that the word should remain in use.

The French government has stacks of forms and other supplies that may not be able to be updated until all the existing paperwork is used so that they can save money.  However, that means there will be time to decide just what will be the alternative French word or phrase that will replace a term that has been used since 1690.  It will be a challenging but worthwhile process to find as clear a substitute as Ms.

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“Are women less stable employees than men,” the authors ask in “Chapter 2: Diversity in Organizations” in the class textbook Organizational Behavior by Stephen P. Robbins and Timothy A. Judge used in my “Organizational Behavior” class.  The authors were also interested in “What about absence and turnover rates?” 

The immediate answers for many people are that women are the caregivers and therefore less stable and more likely to change jobs than men.  And they are right based on the article “Challenging Conventional Wisdom About Who Quits: Revelations from Corporate America” in the Journal of Applied Psychology (93, no. 1 [2008], pp. 1-34).  “…evidence from a study of nearly 500,000 professional employees indicates significant differences, with women more likely to turn over than men.”  Additional researchers found that women have higher rates of being absent and are the ones who take time from work if her child is sick or needs to go to a doctor, wait for a delivery person or a vendor like the plumber, etc.

However, the roles women and men play are changing.  “The U.S. Census Bureau reported yesterday that “One-Third of Fathers with Working Wives Regularly Care for Their Children” wrote Lance Somerfeld in his blog post at www.NYCDadsgroup.com (Tuesday, December 6, 2011).  A quote Somerfeld used stated that “Among fathers with a wife in the workforce, 32 percent were a regular source of care for their children under age 15, up from 26 percent in 2002, the U.S. Census Bureau reported.” The statistics about fathers with preschool-age children was even more interesting:  “one in five fathers was the primary caregiver, meaning their child spent more time in their care than any other type of arrangement.”

Somerfeld stated that the recession triggered a significant increase in men staying home (he uses the term “mancession”).  But there is also the fact that “fathers genuinely want to spend more time with their children.”  Somerfeld’s opinion based on the approximately 500 dads within the NYC Dads Group is that men step in to be the primary caregiver as a choice.

Somerfeld cited another article that brought a new slant to caregiving.  Jobless Dads Get Quality Time With Children as Caregiving Rises by Joel Stonington of Bloomberg/Businessweek reports that “The recession isn’t the only reason (that dads spend more time as a partial or primary caregiver). Women are increasingly contributing more to family income than men, and there is a growing desire among men to take part in the lives of their children, according to Ellen Galinsky, president and co-founder of the New York-based Families and Work Institute.”

Fifty percent of women are managers, for the first time there are 18 female CEOs on the Fortune 500 list, and a growing number of women at all levels of companies are making more money than their husbands.  The fact that dads want to stay home is refreshing.  Mothers are freed up to develop their skills to climb the corporate ladder at one company while dads are able to stay home and care for their children.

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“If you want to leave here with a subject, everyone here repeat with me: Prioritize,” said Pastor Marvin Winans who delivered a stirring, powerful eulogy for Whitney Houston at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey, on Saturday, February 18, 2012. “Whitney Houston Eulogy: Pastor Marvin Winans Closes Funeral Processions” in International Business News US, offered excerpts from the Minister of Detroit’s Perfecting Church after he had spent over three hours hearing celebrities and well-known individuals deliver speeches and musical performances. 

When it was time for Winans to speak, he told his audience that, “I want to assure you that I won’t be that long, but I’ve been waitin’ on ya’ll all day.”  After the laughter in the church subsided, he went on to say that “I want us to recognize that our faith in god is not something that we attach to the end of our lives, but that we must prioritize,” said Winans. “You make your decision based on your faith. You walk according to what you believe. You can never say yes to God and have God make you a stranger.”

Of course I cried during the service at the loss of a memorable singer who went down some rocky paths that distracted her from being her best self.  But I was also moved by the word prioritize that Pastor Winans chose since our nation is also on a rocky path that doesn’t seem to be demonstrating its best self.

Scanning the headlines in The New York Times later on Saturday, I stopped to read this one, “Budget Woes Prompt Erosion of Public Jobs, With a Heavy Toll in Silicon Valley” (The New York Times, February 18, 2012).   My mouth dropped open and I thought, “What?  Silicon Valley is the home of billionaires and millionaires in the technology field.  How could they not be supporting the region’s public services?”

The city profiled in the article by Michael Cooper is San Jose, a robust and growing city of nearly one million located in the heart of Silicon Valley which is at the foot of San Francisco Bay.  What happened to it? Is it turning into another Detroit that may go into bankruptcy?  Cooper identifies a city full of challenges such as the one that the new Bascom Library and Community Center is “one of the four libraries the City of San Jose has built but cannot afford to open.”  He goes on to write that “The city’s Fire Department laid off 49 firefighters two years ago…the Police Department, which laid off 66 officers last summer…stopped responding to burglar alarms.”

What can we prioritize to turn this and other cities suffering similar circumstances around?  “The nation has lost 668,000 state and local government jobs since the recession hit—more than in any modern downturn, according to a new analysis of labor statistics by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government,” Cooper informs his readers.

Will Occupy Wall Street start an Occupy Silicon Valley protest in order to bring greater awareness to politicians and billionaires that a fifth of San Jose’s employees are being laid off and services reduced significantly?  Will they finally see that Silicon Valley is home to the 1% and that maybe a march on the Facebook campus will bring more global recognition of this?

“President Obama Courts Silicon Valley’s New Digital Aristocracy,” an article by Joel Kotkin in The Daily Beast, on February 15, 2012 that states the president’s presence with super rich techies “threatens the populist roots of the Democratic Party and perhaps the delicate social balance of our republic.”

Prioritize the nation’s needs, President Obama, and that need is for jobs, secure jobs in the public and private sectors, jobs that will let people know that they can have faith in the priorities you and other government officials set for our country.  God may not be making employees and those laid off in San Jose strangers; but President Obama and the Silicon Valley Digital Aristocracy are strangers to the nation’s real needs.

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Ma’yan is a nonprofit research and education incubator that focuses a feminist lens on the cultural challenges and identity issues facing Jewish girls in contemporary society. Through research, innovative programming, and community events, we work with these girls, their parents, and their educators to provide resources that help all youth grow into critical, curious, and committed global citizens.

Around ten years ago during a Pilates class at the Jewish Community Center (JCC), I met Eve Landau, Executive Director of Ma’yan, a program of the JCC in Manhattan.  We have had many conversations through the years based around our shared interest in women’s equality.  Recently, I sat down again with Eve to learn more about the work Ma’yan offers to teenage girls, parents, professionals, and the Jewish community.

During our conversation, Eve gave me “Listen for a Change,” a brochure that began with “Why We should Listen.”  Based on some of the ‘listening’ research that Ma’yan had done, the brochure states that, “The girls most often served by Jewish communal institutions—many of them socially, economically, and racially privileged—are thriving.”  However, later in the text, I read that, “They (the girls) are surrounded by mixed messages about femininity and anger, affluence, beauty, and more.”  As Eve pointed out and the brochure states, listening to girls, rather than just adults, in order to serve the girls’ needs, “also models a kind of power sharing or partnership between adolescent girls and adult leaders, which we think is key to cultivating girls’ skills and capacities as leaders.”

At the end of our meeting, Eve suggested that I attend “Who is served by our community service?” a program where I could listen in person to the presentations by the most recent cohort of Research Training Interns (RTI), Ma’yan’s premier program for Jewish teen girls.  According to the organization’s website, “Based on the model of Participatory Action Research, the RTI engages Jewish teen girls in original research addressing issues that affect their lives and those of their peers.  Past cohorts have conducted a broad survey of Jewish teen girls and examined girls’ experiences of Bat Mitzvah.” 

Dr. Beth Cooper Benjamin, Director of Research at Ma’yan, led a cohort that started in late 2010.  Beth guided the girls in RTI to develop their critical thinking skills by picking a topic, designing a survey for their peers, interviewing administrators, summarizing their findings, sharing what they learned then seeking ways to act on their recommendations.

At the program, I was part of an audience of parents, siblings, and others who listened to the voices of nine teenage girls tell us what they learned developing and administering surveys on the topic of community service.  Eve told me that the “Girls are in line to be leaders in the community and the world at large” and I listened to the first presenter echo the future of the young women by stating the girls are “Starting a path to make a difference.”

One presenter said that during the community service assignments they sign up for in high school, “Teens aren’t learning…teens are dealing with symptoms of causes and not the long-term.”  Girls felt that not learning the depths of an issue impeded their ability to make an impact when working with those in need.  They radiated confidence, however, in their skills and ability to be involved on higher levels of service.

“We don’t need to have things sugar coated,” one presenter noted and agreed that “We are motivated to community service if we can love what we do.”  Some presenters spoke about their service at Habitat for Humanity, a school for troubled children, and building a community center in Africa.  The discussion then focused on how a community agency—or high school—can motivate teenagers.

Some ideas from the presenters included making community service more meaningful and effective, with greater frequency of service, regular placements, etc.  They suggested that volunteers should be matched up with an organization by interest and passion.  Teenagers wanted to build a relationship with the staff in a service program or agency and be given appropriate tools on how to be part of the service.

All the young women I listened to have great leadership potential.  Their voices were authentic ones, echoing their commitment to help save the world.  Ma’yan is poised to support the teenagers’ learning further so that they can, as the brochure states, “develop into compassionate, conscientious, and powerful adults of vision and conviction.”  The next step is to share the results of the research project with others, especially those who take action on the recommendations from those in Research Training Internships. 

Ma’yan was founded in 1993 by Barbara Dobkin, the leading Jewish feminist philanthropist in the United States, and Eve, who became Ma’yan’s Executive Director.

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“Tell Congress to Pass the High School Athletics Accountability Act….Today is National Women and Girls in Sports Day — the perfect time to go to bat to achieve equity for girls and women in sports!” read the headlines in the American Association of University Women’s (AAUW) e-mail I received earlier.  And the organization has a reason for support action on this topic:  “Title IX, the law that prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs which receive federal funding assistance, has made great strides in breaking through barriers for female athletes. But today, 40 years later, there is still work to be done — particularly at the high school level.  High schools girls continue to face discrimination in scheduling, equipment, facilities and overall participation opportunities.”

It seems natural to continue to share information about women and girls in sports today.  Yesterday I read a post by Justine Siegal that included the headline at sports.yahoo.com that 7-year-old Anna Kimball kicked off baseball team just because she’s a girl.  Justine says that the child has “the legal right (and the moral one) to play baseball” and that her organization, Baseball for All, will fight decisions like this.  Read my previous post “Baseball for All:  Justine Siegal’s Mission” for more information about Justine who last year and for the first time in the major leagues, pitched batting practice for the Cleveland Indians.

Benefits of Playing Sports

Research in the last ten years has shown that girls who participated in sports as children reap benefits as adults.  In “As Girls Become Women, Sports Pay Dividends” (The New York Times, 2/15/10) Tara Parker-Pope writes that “A large body of research shows that sports are associated with all sorts of benefits, like lower teenage pregnancy rates, better grades and higher self-esteem.  But until now, no one has determined whether those improvements are a direct result of athletic participation.”

Tara-Pope presents the results from two studies by economists that provide “the strongest evidence yet that team sports can result in lifelong improvements to educational, work and health prospects.”

Betsey Stevenson, an economist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, found that “increasing girls’ sports participation had a direct effect on women’s education and employment.  She found that the changes set in motion by Title IX explained about 20 percent of the increase in women’s education and about 40 percent of the rise in employment for 25-to-34-year-old women.”

Robert Kaestner, an economics professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, focused on the long term health of women and “compared rates of obesity and physical activity of women who had been in high school in the 1970s — as Title IX was taking effect — with similar women from earlier years.”  The results weren’t startling but significant since “He found that the increase in girls’ athletic participation caused by Title IX was associated with a 7 percent lower risk of obesity 20 to 25 years later, when women were in their late 30s and early 40s.”

Sports Management and Ownership

“Winning is an attitude, an attitude in all you do,” said Rita Benson LeBlanc, Owner/EVP, of the New Orleans Saints during a telephone interview I conducted with her for the November 2006 newsletter of what is now branded as The Little Pink Book for professional women.  Women are not just earning top roles in sports management they are investing in owning major league sports teams.

LeBlanc was eight when her grandfather Tom Benson assumed ownership of the Saints. As owner and EVP of the New Orleans Saints football team, LeBlanc’s responsibilities for marketing and business operations include creating the revenue to pay the multimillion-dollar contracts for the 99 players on the team along with then organizing a major effort to restore the city of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.  When I asked LeBlanc then where she saw herself in ten years, she said, “In 10 years, I’m owning and operating a Super Bowl championship team.  Male or female in the NFL, we all want that championship ring.  I then asked her if she wanted to be Commissioner of Major League Football and she replied, “When you run a team, you don’t think about running them all.  The owners are the bosses; the commissioner keeps everyone on the same page.  I prefer owner to commissioner.”

Sheila Johnson is a billionaire who together with her former husband Robert Johnson started Black Entertainment Television (BET).  Johnson is very active in business and philanthropic work—plus sports teams where she has taken on leadership roles and invested in three professional sports.  According the article “Sheila Johnson Slams BET” (The Daily Beast, April 29, 2010), “She is president and managing partner of the Washington Mystics of the Women’s National Basketball League, and also owns substantial stakes in the NBA’s Washington Wizards and the National Hockey League’s Washington Capitals. The owner of several hotels and a PGA golf course, she is building a luxury spa and convention center on a 347-acre tract in horse country in Middleburg, Virginia, where she also has a farm and indulges her love of all things equestrian.”

Happy National Women and Girls in Sports Day!  Women and girls in sports seem to be here to stay!