NAWBO-Columbus Member Blog

NAWBO Columbus members Karen Hough of ImprovEdge and Shaune Skinner of ASC Group were two of only a few dozen Central Ohio women to recently get an inside look at the Ohio Air National Guard.  The event, which took place in May, was comprised of women who were recommended by community members to partake in this exciting day during which they got to meet the General in charge of the Rickenbacker Air National Guard base and flew to North Carolina and back on refueling missions.

The Guard began hosting the event to extend its outreach into the community, especially with women leaders, to help encourage female involvement in the Air National Guard.

Colleen Marshall was our inspiring speaker at the June luncheon meeting. Discussing her career from a beat reporter in the 1980’s to her position as lead anchor for WCMH news, she shared some of her award winning news segments with us.

Colleen painted the picture of when she first realized she needed a change in her life, most notably after covering September 11th from New York.  After seeing so many people possitively affecting the lives of others around them, she felt she needed to fulfil her desire to do so, as well.  She soon after enrolled in Capitol Law School, where she achieved her Juris Doctorate while working full-time at WCMH and raising her two children.  Colleen now works at Porter Wright as well as continuing as lead anchor at WCMH.

She also discussed another new role which has begun to dominate a large part of her life: caregiver.  Several years ago, Colleen’s mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and now she, along with her siblings, are caring for their mother as they have to deal with the emotional challenges of watching their mother’s mental deterioration.

Colleen provided an inspiring glimpse into how strength, determination, and desire can really change someone’s life, and she is truly a model example of someone who can “keep it all together.”

Eldercare expert and NAWBO-Columbus member Barbara McVicker spoke at the October monthly meeting about the 75 million Americans who are “stuck in the middle” of kids, career, and caregiving their elderly parents.

Barbara is a national speaker and author of the book Stuck in the Middle:  Shared Stories and Tips for Caregiving Your Elderly Parents.  She was inspired to write the book after the trials and tribulations she faced during the ten year span in which she took care of both of her parents.

Her talk focussed on preparing yourself for caregiving, as well as how to implement caregiving policies in your business to help provide a lifeline for employees who are caregivers.

She stressed the need to have the crucial conversations with your parents (and your children) now, rather than when it is too late.  She said one of the biggest challenges for caregivers was being unprepared and uninformed.

With upwards of 75 million people caring for an elderly parent, it is no wonder that 62% of caregiving workers have made adjustments to their work life, including reporting late to work, stopping work all together, cutting back on hours, or giving up vacation.  McVicker quoted that 17% of caregivers are providing care at least 40 hours a week!

For the business owner, the most shocking number was arguably that American businesses lose up to $34 billion each year due to employees’ needs to care for elderly relatives.  She highlighted the need for all companies to provide eldercare benefits to their employes, siting a rise in health and well-being, productivity, and loyatly in those company’s which already provide such benefits (only 21% nationwide.)

Here are two lists of advice she presented for businesses to help them support their caregiving employees:

Caregiver cures for the workplace:

• Set boundaries
• Support group
• Take personal time
• Training & information
• Ask for help
• Utilize respite care
• Set priorities
• Make choices
• Delegate
• Be proactive
• Achieve balance
• Hire help

Resources businesses can provide to their caregiving employees:

• Lunch-n-Learns
• Webinars
• Keynotes
• Support groups
• Elder care expert on staff
• Making it a safe topic to discuss
• Flexible hours/job sharing

Barbara was kind enough to provide a Caregiver’s Call to Action to all NAWBO-Columbus members.  To download the list, please click here.

For more information on Barbara and Stuck in the Middle, you can visit her website at http://www.barbaramcvicker.com.

Check out the compilation video that was played during the last general session during the WBC.  It’s really quite wonderful!

http://www.sbtv.com/Partners/NAWBO/NAWBO2008/?segid=3827

Power Your Dream © Leroy Hamilton/NAWBO

Well folks, it’s over. It went incredibly quickly, but we certainly learned so much, not only for our businesses, but NAWBO-Columbus, too. And it was great to get to know everyone better!

It was announced that next year’s Women’s Business Conference will be held in Washington, D.C. We can’t wait!

Stay tuned to this blog for more information on NAWBO-Columbus.

Thanks to Leroy Hamilton and NAWBO for the some of the photographs in this blog.

Suzy Welch © Leroy Hamilton/NAWBO

The final keynote address of the conference was delivered by Suzy Welch. Mrs. Welch is a well-regarded business journalist and author and is now also writing a monthly column in O magazine.

She highlighted her 10-10-10 plan, the topic behind her latest book 10-10-10: A Life-Transforming Idea. The concept is relatively simple in concept, yet sometimes difficult to execute and profound once you see how you’ve answered: What are the consequences of my decision in 10 minutes? In 10 months? And in 10 years?

Welch talked quite a lot about her experiences as a woman in the corporate world in the early 1990s and how it still hadn’t begun to fully accept women, especially single moms, as she eventually was. She continued to speak candidly about her relationship with Peter Welch, which at the time was quite a shocking affair as he was still married, and how it changed her business and personal life immensely. All throughout these trying times, she used this 10-10-10 process (something she came up with in the early ‘90s) and she eventually realized how it was a powerful decision making tool.

Welch was an engaging and humorous speaker, and when I met her afterwards during the book signing, she was quite nice and genuinely interested in talking to people. I can’t wait to read the book!

Girls Going Places Entrepreneurship Conference © Leroy Hamilton/NAWBO

During one of the breaks in the morning, we were fortunate enough to visit the Girls Going Places Entrepreneurship Conference which was taking place concurrently with the WBC.  Girls Going Places is an event in which girls from the local community are selected to attend an all day conference where they learn about the benefits and burdens of starting a company, speak with women business owners and learn from their experiences, and participate in interactive games and projects where they learn what it’s like to be a woman business owner.

Girls Going Places also gives annual awards to young women ages 12-18 who have started a business.  They’re awarded cash prizes ranging from $1,000 to $10,000.  During Friday’s luncheon, a young lady was awarded $1,000 for starting an interactive video game business which found fun ways to teach children Latin.  Girls Going Places is sponsored by Guardian Life, a NAWBO corporate partner.

It was very exciting to get to watch some of these girls interact with each other, as well as the women business owners.  NAWBO-Columbus would love to hold a Girls Going Places event in the future!

Friday’s breakout sessions were again very informative, although the Columbus delegation missed the second session because we needed to leave to get back home. But here are the topics:

Breakout Session 1:
An Economic Outlook for Women-Owned Businesses
Negotiating from a Woman’s Advantage
Success is 90% Attitude

Breakout Session 2:
What it takes to Secure a Government Contract
How the Best of the Best Find Success
Creating a Culture of Courage

Friday morning’s breakfast session was a really captivating panel comprised:
• Catherine Corley, Vice President of Small Business at Sam’s Club
• Diane MacEachern, Author and founder of BigGreenPurse.com
• Melissa Bradley-Burns, Senior Strategist for Green for All

Environmental Stability Panel © Leroy Hamilton/NAWBO

Moderated by Cynthia McClain-Hill, it focused on environmental stability in modern business, but it really broke off into two different areas:

1. How to make your company more environmentally friendly
A number of really basic ideas were thrown out, from recycling paper and having a paperless office, to using the right kind of lightbulbs and turning off unused electronics. Several audience questions took this topic into some more depth, mostly highlighting the difficulties people have (especially in certain locales) with recycling, etc.

The concept of environmentally friendly certification was also brought up, and apparently there are several out there, but many aren’t worth it. The panelists recommended going to greenforall.org for a list of available certifications.

Melissa Bradley highlighted upon the federal stimulus bill and how there is a great deal of money available (both for your business and personally) for environmentally sustainable projects. She recommended going to her organization’s website for more information.

2. How to create and produce environmentally sustainable products:
This topic is a lot more in depth, and so it was only touched upon. Catherine Corley from Sam’s Club was able to highlight this practice best by describing how they required of their manufacturers to start using less packaging, and how it made such a phenomenal impact on the environment. Of course, when you’re as big as Sam’s Club/Wal-Mart, any small change will likely have a huge impact, but she was making a point that when everyone starts making these changes, an overall impact can be incredible.

Both Diane and Melissa’s websites have a great wealth of information and resources on environmental sustainability. Melissa also mentioned a great recycling program at RecycleBank.

Amanda, Andrea, Jeanne, & Gail at Giordano's

Thursday evening, Gail, Andrea, Jeanne, and Amanda went to Giordano’s for dinner because you can’t come to Chicago and not have deep dish pizza!

The merriment continued as we headed back to the hotel/conference for the evening cocktail reception which was held on the riverwalk. The weather had finally begun to cool down in Chicago and it was a beautiful evening!

We met so many new people, including Millie, who is hoping to start a chapter in Maryland and came to the WBC to get more information. She was absolutely amazed with NAWBO and was so generous when she spoke about how inspired she was by all the women she’d met! We also spent some time with an old friend of NAWBO-Columbus, former NAWBO National President Suzanne Pease.

Jeanne, Gail, Millie, Amanda, Andrea, & Nicole at Cocktails © Leroy Hamilton/NAWBO