Girls to Get Glimpse of Business Options

Young women from high schools in Irvine and Costa Mesa will gather next month at UC Irvine for a free conference on entrepreneurship and self-reliance.

A total of 90 girls from Costa Mesa’s Estancia High School and Irvine’s University High School will attend the Nov. 6 summit sponsored by the National Assn. of Women Business Owners and An Income of Her Own, a nonprofit group that works with teens.

“The focus of the day is to teach girls that they have the option to be entrepreneurs,” said organizer Karen Herb, president of the business association’s Orange County chapter. “It’s not just the basic three options they have for a career, which used to be teaching, nursing and homemaking.”

Organizers have invited more than 20 successful women, including the owner of a flower shop chain, an author and a computer company executive. Estancia and University were chosen for their diverse student populations, and students were picked at random.

“It’s our aim to get diversity,” Herb said. “We didn’t just want the cream-of-the-crop students, and we didn’t just want those at risk. We want a wide range.”

This is the first An Income of Her Own conference in Orange County. The gatherings began three years ago in San Francisco and have since spread nationwide, said Lynn Karlson, a director of the Burbank-based group.

“It’s designed to broaden [teenagers’] horizons, expectations and the idea of ownership,” Karlson said. “They need to see women owning business as a normal thing, not just a front-page oddity.”

Mimi Birch, assistant principal at Estancia High, is eager to send her contingent to the meeting where students and businesswomen will work in groups to develop mock products and marketing plans.

“It’s not going to be a ‘stand and deliver’ kind of lecture,” Birch said. “It’s hands-on brainstorming and creative. The ladies are going to fire their imagination.”