When focus groups during the 1994 elections revealed that women were disenchanted with government even though they had voted in record numbers in the presidential election two years before, President Clinton realized he needed a liaison: someone to listen to women’s concerns and to report to them what the administration was doing to help.
President Clinton also knew not just anybody would do. And when he made his selection last June, he sent a clear message by finding a person with experience in the private, non-profit and government sectors, someone who had owned a business and served as assistant administrator for the Office of Women’s Business Ownership, part of the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Equally important, she was known for having a good ear and a kind heart.
Betsy Myers, 35, who became Clinton’s deputy assistant to the president and the first director of Women’s Initiatives and Outreach six months ago, had no inkling when she graduated in 1982 from the University of San Diego with a business degree that she would become involved in politics, let alone with a Democratic administration.
Myers’ parents were “moderate Republicans and very uninterested in politics,” she said during a visit in Chicago. She had come to address an annual gathering of business owners and take part in a roundtable discussion at a girls’ school.
In spite of her parents’ disinterest, Myers and her younger sister, Mary Elizabeth, known to the public as “Dee Dee” and former press secretary to Clinton, became involved with Democratic candidates.
“Most people don’t make the connection,” Betsy Myers said, smiling about the revelation.
Yet it was her rich variety of experience rather than any sibling connection that propelled her into her current role.
After graduating from college, she spent a year traveling with the Up with People musical organization, then worked on the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. She worked on Walter Mondale’s failed presidential bid, which she followed by helping with Tom Bradley’s successful Los Angeles mayoral campaign.
Ready for her own business, she joined a three-year training program in 1986 that insurer Massachusetts Mutual offered. She opened an office as an independent contractor.
Myers found the world of business insurance less cut and dried than she may have thought.
“You get to know people and their dreams,” she said.
She focused on women owners and found she could make a difference.
“People would tell me, `Because of you I saved $2,000.’ “
When an opportunity materialized in late 1993 to head the office of Women’s Business Ownership, a group that helps the country’s 7.8 million women business owners, she said yes. The job meant a move across the country with her husband, Eric Orland, who works in residential real estate.
She quickly earned plaudits in that role from advocates such as Hedy Ratner, co-head of the Women’s Business Development Center, a non-profit Chicago-based group that helps female entrepreneurs.
“She helped make an enormous difference in providing women business owners with access to capital, loans and collateral, and finding and increasing the number of technical-assistance programs available under the SBA’s Demonstration Program (which offers training and counseling centers for women across the country),” Ratner said.
Ratner also credits Myers with being more accessible to women’s business organizations than her predecessors and being good at thinking, talking and listening, all positive omens for her present job, Ratner said.
When Myers was asked by President Clinton to switch jobs, she quickly agreed.
“The president is always thinking of ways to better connect and listen to his constituents, and felt it was important to do a better job with women. I agree, particularly since as I traveled around the country in my old job, nobody knew about all the good things we were doing.”
Even though she listens and talks to as many women’s organizations and their members as possible nationwide, she also reaches out to talk to “average working women, those who make less than $40,000, have children and are trying to pay their bills,” she said.
“We have so much to offer them — a child-care bureau, information on how to start a business, services for older women, information on breast cancer.”
The women, in turn, have so much to tell us, she said, citing as an example their concern about affirmative action.
“We did a series of conference calls, and many expressed their concern, which helped our debate and finalize the president’s support for affirmative action.” (Clinton’s position: “Don’t end it, but mend it.”)
Myers is also helping to compile a resource book of female political appointees so that organizations looking for women speakers will know whom to call.
As part of Clinton’s America Goes Back to School Week, when members of the administration fanned out to speak about how government can help, Myers was sent to Chicago, her mother’s hometown.
She spoke at the 9th annual Women’s Entrepreneurial Woman’s Conference at Navy Pier and the Arts of Living School, 721 N. LaSalle St., a combined effort of the Chicago Board of Health and Board of Education that was set up by Catholic Charities 24 years ago.
The public school, in a red-brick building owned by Catholic Charities, was selected as a successful program that educates and counsels 600 pregnant teenagers, usually 13 to 18 years old, and offers them schooling for six weeks at home after the births of their babies.
Arts of Living was also chosen because at the time of Myers visit it faced drastic cuts in federal and state Chapter I funding because of impending Congressional budget cuts, according to Mary J. Nyhan. Federal funding was pared about $10,000, but the school lost $71,000 in state funds, Nyhan said. One teacher was let go and money for summer school and equipment was pared.
“We hear so much about what’s not working and so many complaints, but there are things that are good going on in this country, and what this school is doing for young women, the support to them, their families and their children, and the support it’s giving after the babies are born is wonderful,” she told the audience at the school during her visit.
“We want to learn more. I’m here today to listen and to learn more about your school so I can take it back to Washington.”
She listened attentively to the heart-wrenching stories of the students and alumnae, young in years but mature in their understanding of the possible effect of budget cuts.
As young women spoke, Nyhan, who came to the school seven years ago, it became clear they had benefited from the small size of classes and the warm support of Nyhan and her hand-picked faculty.
“I couldn’t relate at my home school — there were too many distractions,” said Courtnee Pamplin, 16, a mother. “If I had remained at a big school, I would have dropped out. Here, it’s like a family.”
“I was at a Catholic high school and didn’t get a lot of support and didn’t feel comfortable or that I could make it,” said Roxanne Bustamante, a 22-year-old graduate and mother of a 6-year-old. She is assistant to the president of a direct mail company, attends Wright College and plans to go to DePaul University to complete a bachelor’s degree.
“I learned how to cope with my pregnancy (here),” said Deshong Perry, a 21-year-old graduate who attends Roosevelt University and has a 3-year-old. “I never felt not welcome; my self-esteem grew. You got me on the right track,”
“I want to become something,” said Dawn Bradford, 17, a pregnant junior who started at Living Arts this fall and whose father was killed a year ago in a drive-by shooting. “Life’s no longer a closed door but an open window.”
At the end of the discussion, Myers asked the group what message they wanted her to take back to President Clinton. Hands shot up, voices were raised and self-esteem was palpable.
“Tell the president I’m ready (for a job). My schedule’s open,” said Roxanne, with the audience laughing.
“I would like to give back to the community, especially to help young girls,” she said later.
Back in her Washington, D.C., office, housed in a townhouse on Jackson Place, facing Lafayette Park and diagonally across from the White House, Myers said she was more convinced than ever about the importance of such programs.
“My visit with the students and teachers brought me to the front lines of the budget battle here in D.C. It is schools like this that provide the education and nurturing for pregnant teenagers that will keep them in school and will better ensure a productive and independent future for them and their families.”
Myers hopes her job will lead to another, but not for the immediately assumed reason.
“The president says, and I agree, that someday we won’t need a women’s office and advocate. But at this time, when women earn 71 cents on the dollar that every man does, we still do.”
