Are there any obstacles left?

What obstacles still confront women in business? You could ask 1,000 women that question and receive at least that many responses.

Perhaps, said Patty Taylor, president of First Class Direct Inc. in Fort Collins, there aren’t any obstacles.

“Success is what you make it no matter what gender you are,” Taylor said. She can’t recall a single instance when her gender was a negative. In fact, “being a woman in business has been an asset,” she said.

In a free-enterprise system, quality and hard work, good customer service and honesty build business, Taylor said.”If I can’t compete and produce something worth purchasing, then I don’t have any business being in business,” she said.

Taylor speaks from personal experience, having built her First Class Direct bulk-mailing firm over a period of 10 years from a single-person operation (herself) to a 30-person, million-dollar operation. Her husband is a partner and a large part of the business, though he does not work there during the day.

Taylor believes both genders face obstacles in the workplace.

“We have not arrived,” she said, meaning that “people need to find companies in industry who are ‘What you want to be when you grow up.'”

Despite her clear-cut view of women in business, Taylor said, “I can recognize and respect [that] other women have had different experiences than myself.”

Nancy Gray speaks from a wealth of experience and confidence that spans across the years of being an entrepreneur, city council woman, mayor, business woman, mother, wife, and member of numerous councils and boards.

Gray said she looks back on the role of women when she was growing up in the 1940s and ’50s “in horror.” She watched the role of women change from ‘Rosie the Riveter’ during World War II to the rise of feminism in the 1970s and the creation of ‘Superwoman’ in the late ’70s and 1980s.

Where does that put women now? Though the ’80s created opportunities for women in many fields, Gray said women are not much further than they were before.

“The attitudes towards women as individuals has changed, but across the board, concerning women as a whole, not that much is different,´ said Gray, who founded Services Unlimited, a company that evolved from helping women use home-learned organizational skills in the workplace into a public-relations firm.

Gray said women must change how they perceive themselves.

“Women listen to other people too much rather than jumping into a project or job,” she said. “Women are too modest and don’t credit themselves with the skills they have.”

She said women are cruel and judgmental of one another. Financing is another difficulty.

“It’s tough for a single head of household to get financing,” she said. Gray said the best way for a woman to get ahead is “to start her own business.”

That’s just what Kathy Egan did. She was in her mid 20s in 1976, when she opened Acme Personnel Services in Greeley.

“When I first started Acme, there weren’t many women-owned businesses,” Egan said. “There was some resistance, and I grew tired of being announced as the secretary from Acme.”

Despite the difficulty, she found that the novelty of being a woman helped her in the door. Once through the door, she said, “I could show my competency in business, and the barrier disappeared.”

Acme is now Express Personnel Services, and Egan is the owner and operations manager of the firm. Egan’s husband now works full time as the company’s financial specialist and is a partner in the firm.

Egan quoted Pogo when asked about obstacles: “We have met the enemy, and he is us,” she said. She considers women to be their own worst enemies and said they create their own obstacles.

“You achieve what you are willing to conceptualize and when you are willing to make sacrifices and changes for it,” Egan said.

Susan Schell, vice president of human resources and quality at Advanced Energy Industries Inc. of Fort Collins, pointed out that women are critical of male networks and said, “The challenge is not to recreate an elitist clique.”

Schell speaks from the experience of coordinating people in a work environment on a daily basis.

“Women don’t realize they can make the workplace a difficult and painful place for men,” Schell said.

She said the challenges are in business … period.

“Use the best skills of both genders, and don’t build barriers between men and women,” she said. “Diversity is the challenge.”

Bonnie Dean, owner of Bonnie Dean and Associates in Greeley, wonders why society isn’t past these issues. She recognizes, however, that there is still a glass ceiling and inequities in salary for women in private industry.

Beyond these obstacles, she said, “Women are tired of being viewed as complainers concerning these problems.

“Business women I know who recognized these problems still existed in their workplace left and went into business for themselves,” Dean said.

Dean is aware that she might sense less of an effect than other women may deal with in private industry as compared with running a personal business.

She said, “There is a significant number of people who believe they’ve done everything to eliminate barriers. They may not be accurate in that belief.”

Debra Benton has faced many barriers and is glad she did. Benton is a locally and internationally known business woman through Benton Management Resources and her authorship of “Lions Don’t Need To Roar” and “How to Think Like a CEO.”

Her career began in 1974, when she was among the first set of females completing the management-training program for Control Data Corp. in Fort Collins. It wasn’t much later that she was fired.

Benton said, “My boss told me I wasn’t lazy, I just didn’t get along well with the good ol’ boys. It was the best thing that could have happened to me because when you suffer a serious setback, you learn not to work from a point of fear.”

In 1976, she started an outplacement company of her own in Denver. The business skyrocketed, and eventually she pursued research concerning interpersonal skills. Over the course of eight years, she interviewed 2,000 people on the topic and found that her niche was executive development.

Benton’s philosophy is that there are many obstacles in life and “thank goodness there are. It’s from obstacles you learn and grow.” She said, “The obstacles women have are self imposed.”

Vicki Kaman, associate professor in the Department of Management at the Colorado State University College of Business, said some obstacles remain for women. Recently, a female student called and requested a ‘Mr. Kaman’, assuming the position was staffed by a male. Kaman was stunned at the student’s assumption.

“When a person has a mindset that assumes and inhibits thought, it keeps that person from going on to doing greater things in life,” Kaman said. “The fact it would happen tells me there’s a need for more women in these positions to change perceptions.”