Shattering the glass ceiling - prominent businesswomen of Albuquerque

New Mexico Business Journal, Sept, 1993 by Arelen Cinelli Odenwald

NOT TOO MANY YEARS ago, women called it the "brick wall," that invisible, ever present barricade that blocked them from executive posts in the business world.

Later, the term was refined to the "glass ceiling" where women could see the top management posts, but somehow still remained on the underside looking up.

In the '90s, Albuquerque woman executives are becoming not just commonplace, but expected in the business world.

Women are almost half of the work force today in the Duke City although statistics in the top managerial posts for females still fall short of a balance.

The executive power of women in Albuquerque today is ever-present -- in government, in defense, in medicine, in law, in retail, in commerce.

The "glass ceiling" is crumbling.

"I was raised to believe I could do anything I set my mind to," says Sheilah Garcia, owner of Garcia Toyota, Garcia Honda, Garcia Volvo and Garcia Suzuki.

She took over the business nine years ago after the death of her husband when the dealership was far smaller and far less diversified.

"The factory doesn't care if I'm a man or woman," says Garcia, relaxing on the backyard patio of her home near the Albuquerque Country Club. "They just want me to sell a certain number of cars."

Whatever it takes to run four major car dealerships, Garcia has it.

Last year, she became the first businesswoman and first New Mexican to be selected out of 65 of the country's leading automobile dealers as Time Magazine's Quality Dealer of the Year.

She still believes discrimination against women exists in the business world, but contends she's less apt to be a victim of it today.

The proof, it seems, is in the pudding.

Garcia recalls early in her ventures in the work world when she was a teacher in one of Albuquerque's poor schools. She visited pupils' homes and was overwhelmed by the disadvantages under which the children lived.

When she expressed her concern to the principal, the response surprised her.

"Don't you realize these kids aren't going to finish high school anyway?" the principal responded.

"No one expected those kids to do anything," Garcia remembers. "That's what's wrong. The same bias still works somewhat against women . . .

"People have to realize that people tend to do what they're expected to do," says Garcia.

When she took over the business, says Garcia, she jumped in with both feet, working 12 or more hours a day, establishing her personal managerial imprint.

"You always have to prove yourself a little more than the next 'man'," she says. "All you can do is the best you can, then let people judge for themselves."

There are thousands of women, incidentally, who now own their own businesses in New Mexico and they're proving their expertise.

Nearly a third of all businesses in New Mexico are owned by women, says Jill Duval, owner of Duval Publications and publisher of Albuquerque Woman, a magazine that's grown from four pages six years ago to a four-color slick publication today.

A former insurance agent, she turned a hobby into a full time job that had begun initially as a directory of women-owned businesses.

She clung tenaciously to the idea that there's a demand for a locally published woman's magazine.

"It's the type of business that's grown on cash flow and word of mouth," she ways. "I've grown with the magazine, like I grew with the directory."

She's targeting 50,000 career women as readers of her publication.

Women, she says, are penetrating virtually every market in the business world.

Women-owned businesses nationwide employ the same number of workers as the Fortune 500.

Although Fortune 500 companies are expected to lose about 250,000 jobs in the next few years, women-owned businesses are expected to add 350,000 jobs across the nation.

The University of New Mexico was the first law school in the U.S. to graduate a class that was 50 percent women, notes Duval.

"Women are beginning to share the power that until recently belonged exclusively to men," says Nancy Hollander of Albuquerque, who, incidentally, is president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

"In an enlightened time," she notes, "it will not even be worthy of remark that the president of NACDL is a woman."

Hollander has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, the Today Show, the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour and recently returned from a professional exchange trip to Russia sponsored by the International Bar Association.

She earned her law degree from the University of New Mexico after coming to Albuquerque in the early '70s where she landed a job as director of the New Mexico Civil Liberties Union; she also worked for the public defender's office in the Duke City.

Hollander is also co-author of a book, entitled "Uptown," published by Harper & Row, and deals with a study of poor whites in Chicago during the "60s.

She's currently collaborating with UNM law professor Barbara Bergman on a handbook for criminal defense lawyers; in her spare time, she's a race car driver.

Hollander's work, particularly in the field of civil liberties, has garnered attention in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post; she's testified before Congress to restrict federal authorities from unjustly seizing property from the innocent.