Work Books : Couple Help Girls Go Into Science

Throughout her career as an electrical engineer, Judith Love Cohen has seen the number of women in science and engineering rise, although women are still outnumbered by men. Cohen and her husband, David Katz, are trying to change that through their book publishing business, Cascade Pass. Cohen writes and Katz edits and does the artwork. They were interviewed by Karen Kaplan.

*

When you talk to fourth-grade girls and ask them what they want to be when they grow up, they give the usual answers: secretary, nurse, teacher. We want to encourage girls to think about careers in math and science. If you look at the statistics from the National Science Foundation, women only make up about 10% or less of the professionals in engineering and the physical sciences.

We decided to write a book called “You Can Be a Woman Engineer.” It focused on the skills you need as an engineer that are familiar from daily life. For example, you need to be able to visualize things, like when you’re sewing a dress. You need to be able to measure things precisely, like when you’re baking a cake.

We took the book to Kinko’s and made our own copies. David brought it to the schools where he was working as a substitute teacher. We sold a couple of copies here and there.

A couple of years after we started, we went to a booksellers convention in Anaheim. We felt totally intimidated. Still, all these museum buyers and university bookstores wanted to buy our book and asked if we had more titles. We wound up with 30 customers and sold about 500 books. We also made a lot of valuable contacts with distributors.

That trade show was our big opening. We got a more objective idea about how our books would be received. We spent $780 to attend the show--which was a lot of money for the business then--and it was certainly worth it. It helped that we were new to all of this. The less we knew, the less intimidated we were.

So far, we’ve done books on 10 careers, including paleontologist, oceanographer and zoologist. Altogether we’ve sold 42,000 books.

Now we are expanding into new products. We have a CD-ROM about being an engineer that has conversations with Judy, games, NASA footage and things you can’t fit into a 37-page book. It’s scheduled to be in stores this fall. We also started a World Wide Web page (https://www.CascadePass.com) in April where girls can send us questions about science via electronic mail.

There are other books we could do that would probably make more money, but we feel in the bottom of our hearts that we’re helping with a social movement. It’s just a little bit, but there’s satisfaction in being able to help make this world a better place.

The rewards are really 10 years down the road and we’re just planting the seeds now. Someone who’s 23 will be able to say, “I read this book when I was 13 and that’s what made me decide to become a cardiologist.”

On their motivation for writing books . . .

“We want to encourage girls to think about careers in math and science.”

On how a trade show boosted their business . . .

“We wound up with 30 customers and sold about 500 books. We also made a lot of valuable contacts with distributors.”

On why they stick with books about science and engineering . . .

“There are other books we could do that would probably make more money, but we feel in the bottom of our hearts that we’re helping with a social movement.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

AT A GLANCE

Company: Cascade Pass

Owners: Judith Love Cohen and David Katz

Nature of business: Authors and publishers of children’s books

Location: Culver City

Year founded: 1989

Number of employees: 2

Annual sales: Expecting $24,000 this year