Phone calls were made. ”Initially I backed off,” says Plank. ”I told
(Eleanor Petersen), `I don`t belong to any women`s groups.` If you`re professional, you just belong to whatever the professional group is and it includes he`s, she`s and it`s. However, it was Eleanor, and I respected her.” The first order of business was to create a list of top women from various fields. ”We dealt with reams and reams of paper filled with names,” says DeWeese Smith. ”I remember being appalled that there was no adequate list of decision-making women in town. Nobody had a record of what women were doing.”
Allard was roped in to be the first chair of the network. ”Kicking and screaming,” she remembers. Then in her mid-50s, Allard`s involvement brought another level of credibility to the network. She was the first female secretary and general counsel of a New York Stock Exchange company (the Maremont Corporation); the first female vice-president of the University of Chicago; and the first woman partner of the law firm of Sonnenschein Carlin Nath & Rosenthal.
Allard lured Hanna Gray, president of the University of Chicago, to the group. Sue Gin got Jane Byrne, who was elected mayor in April, 1979.
In total, 113 invitations were sent out; 97 accepted. On the first board were such luminaries as Christie Hefner, then vice president of Playboy Enterprises Inc.; Charlotte Beers, then the chief executive officer with the advertising agency, Tatham-Laird & Kudner, which recently merged with a French company; Sears Merchandise Manager Pam Nelson; Addie Wyatt, vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union; and Margaret Hillis, Chicago Symphony Chorus director.
The first organizational dinner was held June 18, 1979, at the Metropolitan Club.
Mayor Byrne spoke. ”I can recall it was the first time, which is both sad and meaningful, that there was ever a group of high-powered women together in a room where, even though you may have been the mayor, you didn`t feel that you achieved any more than they did,” Byrne said. ”You`re dealing right there with your peers. They had fine minds, they were all top level.
”It was that sort of feeling,” Byrne added. ”I talked about the fact that there weren`t very many of us and I had felt it already in the office of mayor. The direction of the speech was, `unless we get more of us and unless we interlock with each other and realize the common goal, we`re not going to get anywhere.` ”
Davis recalls that heady night: ”These people had waited their whole lives to meet their peers. I remember the noise level. It was at the ceiling all night. People were ecstatic. The energy level was revved to the hilt.”
The group established strict guidelines: No guests were allowed at meetings. In order to be prestigious, the Network would not seek out public exposure. Only the top women in a field would be considered for membership, which would be by invitation only; all fields would be considered. The Network would not address political issues or be an advocacy group.
”We were simply going to respond to each other,” says DeWeese Smith.
And respond they did. The networking stories are endless. Susan Davis was between jobs in 1982 when Joan Baratta, senior vice president of Harris Trust took her into the Harris Bank trust division. Later, DeWeese Smith was hired by Ruth Rothstein, president of Mt. Sinai Hospital.
At one meeting, Sue Gin met Diane Sena Young, then a vice president of United Airlines. Out of that meeting, Gin got a lucrative in-flight catering contract with the airline. (Jean Allard became her lawyer, and another member, Margery Blume, a vice president at the First National Bank of Chicago, handled some of her banking.)
For Plank, the group has opened doors not only into business but into friendships, too.
”Once we got together and and trusted each other, we began taking our colleagues everywhere on boards,” she said. ”It was such a wonderful thing to walk in and not feel like a stranger. A lot of us, if we did go on a board, you spent all your life being the first woman this and the first woman that. Which is kind of nice, but every time you opened your mouth, it was as if:
`Aha! You`re representing the entire women`s voice….` The Network provided that confidence quotient. You know you`re not alone. There are others there.”
Today there are many women`s networks, as many as 5,000 across the country, according to some estimates, spurred by the return of women to the work force in the early `70s and a need to tap the same collective power of old boys` networks.
Most networks link people in the same professions. The Chicago Network strives to enhance its diversity of membership. Members include poet Gwendolyn Brooks, scientist Mary Ann Leeper (whose health care firm developed the first female condom), Rev. Willie Barrow, national executive director of Operation PUSH, Sister Candida Lund, chancellor of Rosary College (who says those in the religous order ”are the greatest old networkers of the world. Our role has always been to be helpful to others.”)
The Network specified certain criteria for membership and approval by a special committee. If you work in the corporate world, you must be ”a vice president or above in a large corporation with clear decision-making authority.” If you are in the arts, religion or labor, you must have an
”international or national reputation.” If you serve in education, you must be a president, chancellor or superintendent.
Dues are $400 annually. Some employers front them, and sometimes, high-placed members help.
Although some would argue that the Network should exercise more influence outside its own membership, an array of CEOs, members of governmental bodies
(including the national Republican Party and the State of Illinois) have used the Network as a resource.
”I get about a dozen calls a year from CEOs who say, `We need some names of women to take a look at,”` says Allard. ”`Can you come up with a list for me from that magic little book (the directory of membership) of yours?`
”Or, on occasion, I get phone calls or letters (from companies, etc.)
describing some young woman from their operation who they think might be eligible for the Network. To me that`s a different kind of influence. That says: `Some of ours belong with you,` rather than `I need.` That is a recognition of the importance of the Network.”
Samuel Mitchell, president of the Chicago Association of Commerce and Industry, turned to the Network when looking for board members. ”They were quite a resource for us in finding females to come on the board,” says Mitchell, who found Janet Diederichs, president of her own public relations firm; Evelyn Echols, president of Echols International Travel and Hotel Schools Inc.; and Jean Allard.
”We haven`t selected only people from the Network, but we know that they represent women of commitment,” says Brother Leo Ryan, dean of DePaul University`s College of Commerce. Network members serving the school`s advisory council board include Joan Baratta and Roxanne Decyk, senior vice president/administration of Navistar International Corporation.
There are some members, though, who find the Network disappointing.
”We`ve spent all these years and all this time and effort and money, and what really has happened?,” Eleanor Petersen asks.
”If the group had as a sincere objective the improvement of women`s lots in general, then it could be like a tool,” she adds. ”But if they only get together and be elite only for the benefit of each other, that`s almost anti- social. Why are we copying one of the least desirable behavior patterns of men?”
But others believe the Network was meant to be exclusive, and that societal causes can be embraced in other organizations.
Says Susan Davis: ”The way this whole thing was conceptualized was that the thing that`s going to help other women most is modeling-in and of itself. You don`t have to do more than that. When one succeeds, we all succeed.”
