Girls Get a Glimpse of the Working World : Education: Dozens of O.C. firms join in ‘Take Our Daughters to Work Day,’ aimed at opening career paths.

Jaclyn Dimick met with German bankers and sat in on some high-powered discussions about bond financing Thursday.

And what did the ninth-grader learn? It’s going to take a lot more than high school mathematics to be like her dad, who is chief financial officer of Bergen Brunswick, one of the nation’s largest wholesale pharmaceutical companies.

Thursday was Take Our Daughters to Work Day at Bergen Brunswick and throughout the country. Dozens of Orange County businesses opened their doors to curious young girls--and even some boys--who saw close-up the work-a-day world of their parents.

“He went into many meetings that were hard to understand and I got to see how important he was,” said Jaclyn. “I wish to become better at mathematics to prepare to get a job like my dad’s.”

At AST Research in Irvine, both daughters and sons got to try out the computers; at Westin South Coast Plaza hotel, they checked out jobs from housekeeping to the front office, and for many there were opportunities to take tours, attend meetings and sample cafeteria food.

Neil Dimick at Bergen Brunswick was dubious as he and his youngest daughter, a student at Laguna Hills High School, arrived for work at 6:30 a.m.

“I had apprehensions to start out with that maybe it would be disruptive. But having her watching helped me reflect on what I was doing and make sure I was doing things in the right order.”

He also wondered what visiting international bankers would think. But not for long, he said, “They said they have a similar program in Germany.”

The Dimicks also left work early. “She wasn’t used to my 12- to 14-hour days,” he said. And besides, she added, homework was waiting.

For Jazmin Carino, the day was “pretty neat.” Of course, her mother works at Interplay Productions Inc. of Irvine, which makes computer and video games. In addition to watching her mother Kim handle business calls and work on her office computer, Jazmin got a sneak preview of Clay Fighter II.

That’s the next version of Clay Fighter, a Super Nintendo clay-animation video game that Interplay introduced last Christmas. Jazmin, a seventh-grader at Newhart Middle School in Mission Viejo, got to inspect the clay models for the still-in-production Clay Fighter II.

“It was a great experience,” said her mother, who is director of marketing at Interplay. “She got a chance to see what Mom does.”

AST Research changed the parameters a bit and designated the occasion “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day.”

“In our work environment, there is no differentiation between the talents and skills of men and women, so we thought it would be appropriate to expose both sons and daughters to the opportunities here,” said Michele Richards, manager of community relations for the computer maker.

Thirty boys and girls ate lunch with their parents in the company cafeteria, then were treated to pep talks by AST executives. But the real thrill was using the computers.

“A lot of the kids are more computer literate than their parents,” Richards said. “They weren’t intimidated at all--they just sat down at the computers and started playing.”

Naturally, in Los Angeles, the cameras were rolling Thursday morning. Fox television reporter Barbara Schroeder, on hand to chronicle the Campanile feast, did her stand-up with her 4-year-old daughter, Glenn, in tow. Glenn, cradled in Schroeder’s arms and wearing a shade of hot pink lipstick that matched her dress, grinned deliciously, stuck the microphone in maitre d’ Claudio Blotta’s face and asked, “What does a maitre d’ do?”

“It’s so cute,” Schroeder said later. “The ‘awww’ factor is very big today.”

And so was the event. No question about it, it was girls’ day out. Everywhere you looked, from one edge of the continent to the other, there were girls at work.

At BP America’s headquarters in Cleveland, girls mixed chemicals to make slime. At the Aurora Fire Department near Denver, girls wrestled with fire hoses. At the New York law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton, girls sat through a seminar called “Thinking Like a Lawyer.”

At the White House, daughters of Administration officials and girls from local schools roamed the halls and ate sandwiches on the South Lawn, served by White House butlers in black ties.

“We want to say to the young women of our society: You can grow up to do anything, to be anything, to achieve anything that your imagination and your effort and your talent will let you achieve,” President Clinton told them.

Last year, the nationally observed Take Our Daughters to Work program--the brainchild of the Ms. Foundation--was a small undertaking in some Los Angeles offices and nonexistent in others. This year, the Hollywood Policy Center, a nonprofit, entertainment-community group, coordinated the event on the West Coast, spreading the word with a vengeance.

Movie studios and law firms and science laboratories held special programs. The event moved beyond an intimate family affair and became an outreach program. Some companies brought girls by the busload from schools--particularly from lower income areas--to serve as daughters-for-a-day.

“We sent mailers saying try to find girls who might not get the chance,” said Kathy Garmezy of the Hollywood Policy Center.

“Most of us who have daughters, they’ve been around this stuff their whole lives,” said actress Jill Eikenberry, who took a 16-year-old girl from Penny Lane, a residential treatment program in Northridge for emotionally handicapped girls, to work with her on the last episode of “L.A. Law.” There are so many people who don’t want to do what their mothers do or who don’t have role models. It’s nice to be able to do this for them.”

At the Hollywood-area yard operated by the city’s department of street lighting, girls took 25-foot-high rides in the “bucket”--escorted by their protective fathers. (Yes, there is one woman, an electrical craft helper, and she went up with her niece.)

“How do I look?” asked Michelle Long, 14, after donning yellow helmet and orange safety vest. “Official,” said her father, assistant electrician Tim Wallace.

Katie Martin, on the other hand, was not particularly enthused by the peek that her father, Lt. Russ Martin, gave her into the Santa Monica Police Department, where he is executive officer in charge of operations. For one thing, she said, the department’s sunrise briefing was “the most boring thing” in the world.

But the 9-year-old said her day picked up when she hooked up with mom, Santa Monica park ranger supervisor Diane Martin, who arranged for a tour of the city jail. (It was empty.) Then came the highlight: the city animal shelter. “I love animals,” said Katie, who is now considering a life with the park service. But then again, she said, maybe she’ll just be a movie star.

There were other girls throughout the city getting a glimpse of inner sanctums that belonged to neither of their parents’ worlds.

Organizers said the second annual Take Our Daughters to Work program--expected to attract 3 million participants nationwide--exposes young girls to the world of career options and begins to counteract the stunning loss of self-esteem that many girls undergo in adolescence, which has been reported in well-publicized recent studies.

The day did not pass without controversy, though: There were complaints that it excluded boys. For that reason, Chrysler Corp. said it was not taking part and was discouraging workers from bringing daughters to the office. Other companies, such as Rockwell International and First Interstate Bank, dubbed the day: Take Our Children to Work.

Some boys complained directly to their mothers. “My son said, ‘Take me to work’ ” said Eikenberry of her 12-year-old son. “But he gets to go to work with me all the time. I said, ‘This is a thing about girls. Many girls feel they don’t have the opportunities that boys do.’ ”

Ditto for Silverton’s 9-year-old son. “I think he feels today that girls get more special things,” the chef said. “I told him that traditionally it was expected that men would ordinarily get a career. This whole day is for daughters to see what their mothers do.”

Or to see what their mothers want them to do.

Attorney Kim Wardlaw, a partner at O’Melveny & Myers, said a colleague’s secretary asked Wardlaw to shepherd her daughter around. “She said, ‘I don’t want her to be a secretary. I want her to be a lawyer,’ ” Wardlow recounted. “I perfectly understood. My mother was a bookkeeper and a secretary, and she refused to let me take typing because she wanted me to be her boss.”

Some parents actually were ushering their daughters around in the hopes of discouraging them from creating a family tradition. The ploy didn’t work for Los Angeles Police Detective Wayne Dufort, who brought his 14-year-old daughter, Nicole Dufort, to the Van Nuys station.

“I want to be a detective just like my dad,” she declared. “He goes around and looks for criminals. He goes from house to house looking for gang members. I think it’s fun and it’s exciting,” said Nicole, who said she doesn’t want to be a nurse, like her mom, because it’s too boring.

Times staff writers Scott Shibuya Brown, Ted Johnson, Chau Lam, Greg Miller, Lucille Renwick and Renee Tawa contributed to this story.