‘Orange County respects achievement.’ : Women Zero In on Climbing to the Top

Adrienne Doyle-Brennan, president of a Newport Beach public relations firm, didn’t follow the traditional path to white-collar success.

In fact, she started out wearing blue. As a cop on the beat for the Los Angeles Police Department, Doyle-Brennan fended off drug addicts with Mace and put in long hours patrolling rough neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley.

But it wasn’t the danger that led her to quit the force.

“The promotional process (within LAPD) can be incredibly subjective,” Doyle-Brennan, 30, said. “There are a lot of old-timers. Some of them absolutely think women shouldn’t be on the street. . . . It would have taken me 25 or 30 years to advance my career.”

In 1986, Doyle-Brennan left the force to join a public relations firm. After three months, she started her own firm, specializing in handling public relations for physicians. She started the company with $5,000 saved up in a police pension plan.

Pays Herself $45,000 a Year

Already profitable, the business now has about 30 clients around the country. Doyle-Brennan has nine employees and pays herself about $45,000 a year.

By starting her own firm, Doyle-Brennan sidestepped one of the major problems confronting women in the workplace, according to the National Assn. of Female Executives.

NAFE, which is sponsoring a regional conference this weekend in Costa Mesa on issues confronting women executives, has nearly 200,000 members nationwide.

Like Doyle-Brennan, most are relatively young and would like to improve their position. The median age of NAFE members is 34, and their median income is $35,000. Based in New York, the organization’s Southern California region is its largest.

“Not all women may want power and money,” said Leslie Smith, associate director of NAFE. “But if you do want it, how do you go about getting it? Our organization exists to help answer that question.”

This weekend’s conference, being held at the Red Lion Inn, addresses topics ranging from financing business ventures to “what men really think of women in business.”

The problems faced by women executives are not new, but no less pressing than in years past, NAFE contends. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 10.9% of full-time women workers earn $30,000 or more. Only 1.4% earn $50,000 or more.

‘Hidden Channels’

“Getting access to some of the hidden channels is the problem,” Smith said. “If women are not invited to Saturday golf games, they may never find out about the really powerful jobs.”

And Orange County is no exception.

“The glass ceiling has become something of a cliche. But the fact is it’s very, very real,” said Andrea Henninger, president of the Orange County chapter of Women in Business, a Southern California professional women’s support and networking group.

“The requirements needed to make that next step up to the top levels of corporations is so ephemeral that they’re hard to pin down,” Henninger said.

Six years ago, Henninger left a career as a computer systems expert with large corporations such as Bank of America and Arco to start the Orange County branch of the Transition Group, a New York firm that helps corporations adjust to mergers and layoffs.

In Orange County, a few business women have managed to climb to the top, such as Lorraine Mecca, former chief executive of Micro D, a highly successful computer products distributor, and Barbara Jenkins, president of Franklin Thrift & Loan in Orange.

But they are the exceptions to the rule.

“As I go around the county visiting companies that I follow, I rarely run into an executive who is a woman,” said Jeff Kilpatrick, president of Newport Securities.

Nationwide, the ranks of middle management are increasingly being filled by women. Over the past decade, the percentage of women in middle-management positions has risen from 24% to 38%, Smith said.

Traditional Women’s Jobs

“But these gains tend to be in what are traditionally considered women’s jobs: personnel directors of corporations, or publishing and public relations jobs,” Smith said.

In Orange County, the majority of working women hold clerical and service jobs, according to Carol Hatch, executive director of the Orange County Commission on the Status of Women.

“Very often, we see women take these jobs while looking for careers and just get locked in,” she said.