Developer Tells How Struggles Led to Success : Kathryn G. Thompson spoke to the Orange County chapter of the National Assn. of Women Business Owners, offering encouragement to those still trying to get ahead.

Developer Kathryn G. Thompson is not known as a person who reveals much about her personal life. Some call her shy, others, aloof.

But she broke with that image last week, telling stories about the obstacles she has hurdled to a roomful of women business owners who are still struggling.

Thompson, on other days, has been known to entertain George and Barbara Bush, or challenge the effectiveness of county government by proposing to build and operate a private jail. She has held not one, but two forums for Democratic presidential contender Bill Clinton, just to shake her own Republican party into action on the economy. She has written about the need for successful women to become politically active.

When she spoke last week to the Orange County chapter of the National Assn. of Women Business Owners, Thompson said she was there to do what she could to encourage other women: “I believe in the power of women and I do everything I can to support our gender. Although I believe we have to work harder to make it, I believe we can make it.”

Thompson shared her stories of struggle with a group of about 120 women, most of whom have small, service businesses such as real estate sales, software support, financial advice and secretarial services.

She said people should do for a living the same things that turned them on when they were 8. Thompson, at 8, found the deed to her family’s home in a drawer, and decided it would be fun to sell it to a boy down the street. She sold it for about $2, she said in a later interview. The boy’s parents gave it back when they discovered what had happened.

Years later, she became the first (and so far, the only) woman inducted into the California Building Industry Foundation Hall of Fame. Thompson is chairman and chief executive of an Aliso Viejo home-building company that bears her name.

During her speech, Thompson advised women business owners to try to conquer their fears, and told about the most frightening times in her life.

Several years out of college, she said, she decided that she wasn’t moving as fast as she would like in her professional life. So, in the mid-1960s, she moved from her native Dallas to Southern California, which was growing faster, and earned her real estate license.

But she was young and shy and had a strong Southern accent--all of which she said she believed worked against her. She had a hard time convincing anyone that she could sell homes. The first person to give her a chance was Esther Hotchkiss, who managed a Buena Park office, and Thompson was sent out to knock on people’s doors, asking them if they would like to sell their houses.

“I found the entire experience so humiliating, I almost gave up,” Thompson said. “But I had a desire to succeed and a refusal to admit the people who said I wouldn’t make it were right. Sometimes the only thing that keeps you going is pride.”

She persevered, read more about sales techniques, and was selected California Rookie of the Year by one real estate sales association. And, today, former boss Hotchkiss works for her. More than half of Thompson’s 50 employees are women.

Thompson finished with a story about how she adopted her brother’s infant daughter in the same year that she and her first husband were divorcing. “I knew nothing about children,” she said. “I had not contemplated motherhood. I flew to Dallas an unencumbered single woman, and flew back to California a mother.”

The lesson she learned from that experience was “keep moving forward.” Her daughter, Kristen, is 18 and plans to attend junior college in the fall. She talks about a possible law career, Thompson said.

Thompson has said that women have had to break down economic and social barriers to become successful, thereby developing an ethic of success through struggle. She said that such an ethic could rejuvenate this country, and she urges women to involve themselves in politics.

This spring, Thompson joined a coalition of moderate business leaders to back Judith M. Ryan as the GOP candidate for the 46th Congressional District. The move broke tradition by opposing a party incumbent, Rep. Robert K. Dornan, who is considered by moderate Republicans to be out of step with social issues and women’s concerns.

The women business owners group she spoke to did not start out to become politically active, but it has consistently gone down that road in its two years of existence.

Several members--at last count, 66 Orange County women belong--have visited legislators in Sacramento to discuss the need for a state version of the national Women’s Business Ownership Act of 1988. The bill, AB 1488, is slowly moving along. It would identify the businesses owned by women, identify barriers that remain for businesswomen and review the role of government in promoting women-owned businesses.

The chapter is opposing another bill, AB 3059, which would change the definition of an independent contractor. Losing independent contractor status means becoming classified as an employee, and that means losing tax write-offs.

The bill would redefine an independent contractor as someone who has made a large capital investment in his or her business. Smaller, service-oriented businesses, which are the types of businesses women often start, usually have not made such an investment.