Message from the Outgoing President

My year as President is coming to a close. This has been a wonderful year for me, and I can’t believe how fast it has flown by. I appreciate the opportunity to have served as EWG President.

I am pleased to be handing over the gavel to Marylouise Uhlig and the other outstanding members of the new Board. They will ably lead EWG into 2004.

I was fortunate to have a wonderful, committed Board to help me. Without them this would have been a difficult year. I want to thank each of them. I especially want to thank those who agreed to serve at my special request. Thanks also to the previous presidents and members who rolled up their sleeves to help.

We have accomplished a lot in the last year. We have had a number of excellent programs and are positioned to have great programs in the future. We have a new management company and we have put procedures in place to communicate more easily with the membership. While there is still much to be done, we can be proud of all we accomplished.

I learned that you really do get more out of something when you put more into it. I say that as encouragement to other members to get more involved. There are many committee slots in need of your leadership and assistance. If you have the time and want to be more involved, let Marylouise or one of the new Board members know. EWG has a great potential. Be involved and make a difference.

-- Linda Massaro

Message from the Incoming President

We all owe a vote of thanks to Linda Massaro and the 2002-2003 Board, in whose capable hands EWG has become an organization we can all be proud of. Thanks to her and to you, we have a remarkable foundation to build on.

What every woman in EWG has in common is leadership, not just the leadership that comes from the old school of football coaches and good old boys, but something with an entirely different flavor. Here we have a talent pool of women who have overcome all kinds of obstacles to be here, and we are setting a different kind of example for the next generation of leaders, regardless of gender. We are showing that it is possible to have a tough mind in a female body. That leaders who think well also have hearts, and that compassion and a strong intellect both are necessary to succeed at the top. As women in this society, we have juggled caregiving responsibilities—whether or not we have children. We therefore come to leadership with a set of values that are especially needed in these times, when so many of our employees look to us for reassurance.

As executive women in troubled times, we have extraordinary responsibilities, and that also means extraordinary opportunities—to make space for and to influence the next generations, and to show them a model of leadership that is effective for both women and men as we find ways to contend with a changing world.

This year, I hope we will do even more than continue to network among ourselves. As rewarding as that is, it is not enough. More than ever, we need to reach out to those who show leadership potential. If no one mentored you, that is all the more reason for you to be a mentor. I challenge each of you to find at least one person who you believe in, and meet with them regularly in the coming year. If you water a plant, it may bloom; if you don't, you'll never know if it could have.

I look forward to working with you this year. As women leaders, we are needed as never before, and we have more resources than ever before to rise to the challenge.

-- Marylouise Uhlig

New EWG President Sworn In

On June 10, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (left) installed Marylouise Uhlig (right) and other new officers onto the EWG Board during ceremonies at the Court. The justice is a member of EWG.

Uhlig is Associate Assistant Administrator of the Office of Pesticides, Pollution Prevention and Toxic Substances, Environmental Protection Agency. She replaces outgoing president Linda Massaro of the National Science Foundation, currently on detail at the National Defense University.

Other officers installed at the ceremony were: Cathleen Lawrence, executive director, Proliferation, Arms Control, Political Military Affairs and Verification and Compliance Bureaus, State Department, as president-elect; Sheryl Swed, assistant administrator, Office of Federal Contract Assistance for Women Business Owners, Small Business Administration, as vice president; Lori Santamorena, executive director, Government Securities Regulations Staff, Bureau of Public Debt, Treasury Department, as secretary; and Sylvia Shanks, senior attorney, Office of General Counsel, General Accounting Office, as treasurer.

Shattering the Glass Ceiling:
Women in Federal Service

A fascinating historical document at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management was recently unearthed—a dusty old copy of the Civil Service Commission’s Study of Employment of Women in the Federal Government, 1968. This study dates back to the beginning of the Federal Women’s Program, and it contains some remarkable information.

Breaking Glass Ceilings

Back in 1968, women represented 34 percent of the federal workforce. That number, however, tells only part of the story. This was a time of limited horizons for women. Even the want-ads back then were segregated – one section for men’s jobs, and another for women’s jobs.

Women who thought about working were supposed to be teachers or nurses or secretaries. If you were an African-American woman, your horizons were even more limited. So it should come as little surprise that those women in the federal workforce in 1968 were concentrated in the lower grades, mostly in clerical positions. In the upper echelons of our government, women were almost invisible. Barely one percent held positions above grade 12.

Status of Women by Grade Levels, 1968 (Full-Time White-Collar Employment)

* Primarily support staff to Federal judges and courts.
Source: Study of Employment of Women in the Federal Government 1968, U.S. Civil Service Commission.

Over the course of the past three-and-a-half decades, women have been shattering glass ceilings to advance steadily and dramatically into upper grades of the federal government. We still have work to do at the senior levels, but the progress is striking.

Greater Diversity in “Women’s Work”

In 1968, the federal government hired its first woman Tug Boat Captain, the first female Structural Engineer, and the first female Customs Inspector. By the end of FY 2002, women made up 34.8 percent of federal employees in Professional occupations.

Women continue to occupy the overwhelming majority of traditional “female” positions such as Librarian and Nursing. However, as the next chart indicates, women are successfully bridging the gender gap in many additional professions in today’s government. A majority of Accountants are women (54.3 percent at the end of FY 2002, compared to only 6.7 percent in 1968) as are 42.7 percent of the government’s General Attorneys (up from only 6.1 percent in 1968). While the positions women hold in the federal workforce are certainly more diversified than in 1968, occupations such as Engineering and Investigation remain male strongholds.

Representation of Women by Job Classification, 1968 and 2002

Women not only have made great strides within the civil service, they also are playing a growing role in our military. At the beginning of the war in Iraq, more than 210,000 women were serving on active duty, about 15 percent of the total; more women in positions of greater responsibility than at any time in our nation’s history.

Building Diversity into the Pipeline

As of September 30, 2002, women represented 44.0 percent of all federal workers, slightly below their representation in the civilian labor force (46.6 percent). Overall comparisons by race and national origin (shown in the table below) suggest that only two groups of women – Hispanic and white women—are underrepresented governmentwide compared against their CLF rate.

Comparison of Women in the Federal and Civilian Workforces
by Race/National Origin

* Derived from 2001 Civilian Population Survey.

Examining the representation of women by grade levels and race/national origin reveals a different picture. The higher one moves up the ranks, the greater the disparity in representation by race and national origin. As shown in the table that follows, for example, white women make up 27.3 percent of the total workforce and 20.6 percent of those at Senior Pay levels. The corresponding figure for African-American women is 10.9 percent of the overall workforce, but drops to 2.7 percent in the Senior Pay grades.

Women by Grade Groups and Race/National Origin
(September 30, 2002)

Bridging this glaring disparity in the government’s leadership ranks may very well be the greatest challenge remaining when it comes to women’s participation in the federal workforce. One strategy for building diversity into the leadership pipeline is the new governmentwide Senior Executive Service Candidate Development Program (CDP) announced by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in April.

Designed to attract and recruit minorities and women and train them in the skills necessary to serve in the senior ranks of government, OPM’s CDP will bring together a diverse cadre of potential executives from participating domestic and defense agencies and the private sector. Recruitment will be consistent with the merit system principles – the foundation for all we do.

The development model for the CDP will provide candidates a unique and rich experience. Through exposure to leadership experiences, feedback and positive mentoring, the OPM CDP will contribute to the government’s efforts to create a high-quality Senior Executive Service leadership corps that reflects the rich diversity of America. We are now working on a complete implementation plan, and expect to announce the application process by October 1, 2003.

Conclusion

Women have indeed come a long way since 1968, but there still are job series, and agencies, where they are not well represented, particularly at the higher ranks. This is especially true for individual groups of women by race and national origin.

In addition to OPM’s governmentwide efforts, workforce and succession planning and diversity management is a must at every agency if we are going to maintain our gains and make greater progress in the years ahead. In 1968, there were few opportunities for women and minorities in corporate American and in the nonprofit sector; the federal government was one of the few places they could go and at least get a foot in the door. Today, top employers line up at the doors of our best and the brightest young women as they come out of college; they have so many opportunities that we have to work harder than ever to compete and get them into government.

The days when the only women in the office were the “lady clerks” have long gone. Our daughters daughters can look forward to a future full of possibilities in government service.

-- Kay Coles James

(The author is Director of the Office of Personnel Management. This article is excerpted from an article in the Federally Employed Women’s conference program.)

EWG New Members in FY03