2 ‘Women’ Execs Fail to Pass Muster

Four-hundred-and-ninety-eight business owners were thrilled to make Working Woman magazine’s list of the 500 largest woman-owned companies.

But for No. 25 Lynn Johnson and No. 387 Gale Burkett, the rankings caused some chagrin.

Those who knew them well were quick to point out that each failed one key criterion: They are decidedly male.

“I’ve been called a lot of things, but never chairwoman,” Burkett said.

In Johnson’s case, perhaps the name of company should have been a clue: Johnson Brothers.

There were titters--enough, apparently, that Johnson declined to discuss the matter with a reporter. Johnson’s name appeared in an abbreviated list that accompanied an Associated Press story about the rankings earlier this week.

With Burkett, the confusion apparently stems from the fact that his wife, Jean, is a vice president of his company, Houston-based engineering services company G.B. Tech. Working Woman’s criteria require that the main shareholder is a woman.

For the magazine, for and about professional women, assuming two corporate chiefs were women on the basis of their names alone proved an embarrassing presumption.

The magazine said it would correct the list in its July/August edition, out June 2.