Busting through the glass ceiling

BARBARA DIAMOND

The Laguna Beach Woman’s Club plumbed the vast reservoir of talented,

successful women in town and came up with three peaches for a Glass

Ceiling forum.

Christy Joseph, Sue Ferguson and Anne Morris were the guest

speakers at the forum held Jan. 16 at the clubhouse.

All three have hit the roof, shattering the limits imposed on many

women in fields dominated by men. Joseph is a partner in a

multi-state law firm. Ferguson and Morris both found success in

marketing. Morris is a former resident and has worked in town for

years. Joseph and Ferguson live in Laguna.

Morris’ path to success is perhaps the most traditional of the

three speakers, starting with a career in nursing and then using her

experience as a volunteer to move into marketing. She has loved

almost every twist in the road.

Morris had a mother who wanted her daughter to be able to take

care of herself and an insatiable need to learn new things.

“I knew I wanted to take care of people, so I went to nursing

school,” she said.

Morris spent 19 years in the profession and loved it. However, her

life changed dramatically in 1988 when she was diagnosed with breast

cancer -- with a life expectancy then of five years. She was 35 and

still living in her native Midwest.

She vowed not to die in Kansas and headed for California.

Morris began her life on the West Coast working for a doctor. It

was at the beginning of the managed health care era, and many

patients were unhappy.

“People started yelling at me and I started getting cranky,” said

Morris, who by that time was married to contractor Mike Morris. “I

told my husband I was going to quit, but I didn’t know anything else.

He said, ‘You know my business, so you are now my business manager.’”

That was the first career change made by Anne Morris, but far from

the last -- and none planned.

The couple joined two chambers of commerce, and Anne Morris began

volunteering for every chamber committee. A friend suggested that she

apply for membership director of the Orange County chamber.

Anne Morris got the job, but gave it up when her husband

contracted Bell’s palsy, which eventually went away.

When Anne Morris was invited to sit on the volunteer board of the

Susan G. Komen Foundation, she thought it was a grand idea

“I realized I was intrigued with volunteerism, but I also was

selling advertising for the chambers,” Anne Morris said. “Mike

suggested I get a job with a nonprofit.”

Anne Morris heard about a job opening at South Coast Medical

Center, applied for it and became the hospital’s annual fund manager.

“I loved it and I learned new things,” said Anne Morris, who

managed to fit in a course in fundraising at UC Irvine.

She left the medical center when she was invited to be the manager

of the Laguna Beach Chamber of Commerce. Through that job, she met

South County Bank officials, who offered her her present position as

vice president of development and regional manager of the branch soon

to open in Laguna Beach.

“I left the chamber in September and have spent the last three

months learning about banking,” Morris said. “I love it.

Past club President Kim Salter introduced the audience to attorney

Joseph, whom she has known for more than 20 years.

“We met working in a restaurant while going to college,” said

Joseph, who planned to be an attorney.

“I got into a good law school [Hastings], graduated and thought,

what do I do now?” Joseph said.

Joseph chose to be a litigator, with a style all her own.

“Litigation is a fight, but does have to be an ugly fight?” Joseph

said. “My style is to work with people, to find areas we have in

common, situations we can share and open communications.”

She developed her empathetic style on a tour of a lockdown mental

ward.

A second lesson was taught her by a young man who claimed that all

Asians discriminate against African Americans. Joseph said she got

defensive and then realized she had stopped listening to him because

of her personal convictions.

“When I go into a deposition -- which is the closest thing to a

trial -- I don’t want to make anyone defensive,” she said. “I want

the truth, but I want [the witness] to be my best friend. That might

make them think they are smarter -- but bring it on.

“My first approach is feminine, but when ‘swell’ doesn’t work, the

mother lioness comes out. Sometimes, you have to be aggressive, but

you need to know when to battle.”

Joseph attributes her partnership in the 3,500-attorney law firm

partly to her ability to accept adversity and keep on trucking -- a

quality she believes is more prevalent in women than men.

“The first year, I should have made partner was during the

recession,” Joseph said. “I was told to wait. It was a tough pill.”

She swallowed the pill and gracefully pushed aside the

disappointment. A male attorney in the firm also up that year for

partnership did not handle it as smartly.

“He got angry and showed it,” Joseph said.

When the two were up again for partnership, the male attorney was

not voted in by the mostly male partners. Joseph was.

Ferguson took perhaps the chanciest road of all to the rooftop.

She is now retired from a company that grew from 500,000 customers to

7 million customers on her watch, for which she was well-compensated

and respected.

That wasn’t how it started.

“When I got out of college, I wanted to work in mass transit,”

Ferguson said. “I was 22, and I interviewed like crazy.

“The interviewers were cigar-smoking, martini-drinking guys who

practically laughed at me. They called me ‘sweetheart.’ I was too

young and too naive to understand that they can’t do that.”

The belittled Ferguson took a marketing job with a small firm --

mass transit’s loss. She then was offered a job with Quaker Oats,

where she spent seven years before moving to Citibank for eight years

and then to a cable company, which proved to be a stepping stone to a

satellite company, where she was destined to make her mark.

Ferguson quit a well-paying job to take a position with a little

satellite dish company. At the time, Echo Star was having trouble

meeting its payroll.

“They said I would have to take a pay cut,” Ferguson said. “My

friends said I was crazy, but I had seen the cable industry and I

knew we could eat their lunch. And we did.”

Today, Echo Star is a Forbes 500 company, its president is a

billionaire, and Ferguson is optimistic about the future of

professional women.

* OUR LAGUNA is a regular feature of the Laguna Beach Coastline

Pilot. Write to Barbara Diamond, P.O. Box 248, Laguna Beach, 92652,

hand-deliver to 384 Forest Ave., Suite 22.