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Wanted: High-Tech Women for Lucrative Careers
by Karen West

Gena Peth is proof that you don’t have to be computer savvy to pursue a career in high tech. She didn’t even know how to type, let alone operate a computer, when she enrolled in her first computer information systems course at Edmonds Community College.

Then a single mother of four on welfare, Peth’s resume read: “McDonald’s manager, mother.” Determined to earn enough money to support her family, Peth earned her Associate of Technical Arts degree, completed an internship on campus, and was hired the next day by a Seattle online company as a Web developer. She soon moved up to computer programming and today is senior software engineer for the nonprofit College Success Foundation in Issaquah. Not only is she off welfare, Peth, 40, has since remarried, had another baby, bought a home and is thriving in her lucrative high-tech career.

“It was intimidating at first,’’ Peth says of her first exposure to computers 11 years ago. “But I had a lot of support from my instructors.’’ She says high-tech careers are perfect for women because they offer high-paying jobs with flexible hours.

Success stories like Peth’s, however, are hard to come by in the high-tech industry. Here are some disheartening statistics:

• Women outnumber men by nearly 52 percent when it comes to logging onto the Internet. Yet the number of women seeking high-tech jobs has dropped to its lowest level since the mid-1970s, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

• While the United States leads the world in technological advances, women’s career advancement in the high-tech industry is crawling at a snail’s pace.

• Female graduates outnumber their male counterparts, yet only 28 percent of computer science degrees in 2003 were awarded to women, according to the National Science Foundation.

Puget Sound area businesses, professional organizations, secondary schools and colleges are working hard to reverse these troubling trends. Business experts and educators say that in order for women to advance in Seattle’s competitive high-tech arena, companies and schools need to improve the industry’s nerdy image, abolish gender bias and offer networking and mentoring programs.

“Women make up half the population, but when you look at the high-tech jobs, there’s no female Bill Gates,’’ says May Leong, cofounder of DigitalEve, a Seattle-based online networking organization for women in technology. She started the group in 2000 with 27 other women and has served as executive director. Prior to her work at DigitalEve, Leong was the international director of New York-based Webgrrls, where she tripled the networking group’s population to 30,000 in one year.

NOT JUST FOR GEEKS

The “geek factor” — images of guys in white coats wearing pocket protectors — also plays a role in discouraging women and girls from pursuing careers in high tech, says Karen Peterson, CEO of the nonprofit Puget Sound Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology. She wants young women to know that computer science doesn’t mean sitting in a stark room all day writing code. The challenge for educators is to attract women and girls to the high-tech industry as early as grade school.

Peterson says that young children today grow up with technology and view it differently than adults. “Technology is a part of their life,’’ she says. “They are users of technology but they are not producers of technology,’’ Peterson says.

Marie Cini, associate vice president of Academic Affairs for City University of Seattle, says younger children of both genders are equally good at math and science but that seems to change as girls enter junior high school.

The good news is that there are dozens of networking, training and educational organizations in the Seattle area to support and promote women and young girls in pursuing high-tech careers. Among them are the Alliance of Technology and Women, Seattle; the Association for Women in Computing, Puget Sound Chapter; DigitalEve, Seattle; and IGNITE (Inspiring Girls Now in Technology Evolution).

Cathi Rodgveller, equity coordinator for Seattle Public Schools who founded IGNITE in 2000, says that while many girls are familiar with technology, including cell phones, video games and the Internet, many have never considered careers that envision, develop, market, sell or rely on those technologies. She started IGNITE as a grassroots effort between the Seattle Public School System and professional women working in the high-tech field with the goal of inspiring young women to consider high technology as a positive career choice.

The heart of the IGNITE program is a presentation that is made to young women in grades 9 through 12, usually in minority-rich school districts. Professional women volunteer their time to go to each high school and offer information about themselves and careers in high tech. Since the first presentation in 2000, more than 10,000 high school girls have participated in IGNITE programs. After hearing from professional women in the high-tech industry, girls become motivated to pursue careers in that field. “These girls initially had no idea high-tech careers were so cool,” Rodgveller says.

GETTING AN EARLY START

These types of programs are crucial to keeping young girls interested in computers, especially because trends show that girls start to lose interest in math, science and computer technology around fourth or fifth grade, says Debora Horvath, executive vice president and chief information officer for Washington Mutual, Inc. “We need to continue to reinforce their interest in technology,’’ she says. As Washington Mutual’s CIO, Horvath oversees the company’s technology systems. She was named No. 3 on U.S. Banker Magazine’s 25 most powerful “Women to Watch” list for 2006.

Horvath says it’s never too early to start exposing children to computers. She introduced her daughters to computer games when they were only two years old. Playing computer games gives her daughters, ages four and seven, the building blocks to computer literacy, offers problem-solving skills, and motivates them to continue learning about technology.

As for finding success in Seattle’s competitive high-tech industry, Horvath recommends women hone their business and relationship-building skills. “When we move into leadership ranks, it’s not uncommon for us to be in the minority so we need to be supportive. Men will go out on the golf course to form a relationship. Women tend to create them in other ways.’’

SLOW RISE TO THE TOP

Several barriers, including a male-dominated corporate culture, are preventing women from moving up in their high-tech careers, according to Catalyst, a nonprofit New York-based research group dedicated to advancing women in business. “Not surprisingly, the barriers and demands of the high-tech industry are very similar to those of traditional industries,’’ says Catalyst president Ilene Lang. “What is surprising is that in an industry that thinks of itself as a meritocracy, women and men both perceive a lack of acceptance of women.”

The lack of women in senior positions in the high-tech industry is not just an educational issue, according to a Catalyst study of women in high tech. Women are visible and successful in the industry, yet their representation in leadership roles continues to lag. The number of women drops dramatically as professionals move up the organizational pipeline. This, despite a plethora of high-tech jobs. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that nearly 2 million new computer and Internet technology-related jobs will be added to the nation’s workforce by 2012.

The dwindling number of women in high tech comes at a time when more and more women are becoming computer savvy. According to eMarketer, an online research firm, female usage of the Internet in the U.S. has risen 12.4 percent since 2000, compared with 3.2 percent for males. In 2011, 109.7 million U.S. females are projected to be online — about 51.9 percent of the online population. While the ability to communicate and find information is driving women’s Internet usage, it doesn’t mean they are interested in high-tech careers.

The problem, Lang says, is that high-tech companies are not providing adequate leadership training, career planning and development programs for women. Effective change in terms of recruiting, retaining and advancing women requires a commitment from company and industry leaders to create flexible work environments and provide opportunities for mentoring and networking.

EDUCATION KEY TO SUCCESS

The challenges for women today are to educate themselves, such as Peth did, and find networking and high-tech training opportunities.

Most high-tech careers, including computer engineers, computer systems analysts and scientists, computer programmers, engineers, natural and mathematical scientists, and managers in engineering, science and computer systems, generally require a bachelor’s degree or higher, or work experience in addition to the degree requirements. Computer support occupations, such as science and engineering technologists and technicians, usually require two years of specialized training, an associate degree, or certification.

“It’s daunting for a lot of women to join in a cyber community, but women are lifelong learners and well-suited for technology,’’ says Honora Wade, DigitalEve board member and leader of the Seattle chapter. A self-described “sci-fi computer geek,” Wade became computer savvy in the 1980s during high school and started her own consulting firm at age 23. She encourages women to explore technology careers by surfing the Internet, networking and taking college courses.

Puget Sound area universities and community colleges, including the University of Washington, City University, Cascadia Community College, South Seattle Community College and Seattle University, offer a wealth of technology and computer science classes and programs.

To encourage women to enter the computing field, South Seattle Community College offers four “career-ready” tracks in its Computing Technology Program: Network Administration, Software Engineering, Network Technician, Web Media & Technology. The college also has a partnership with Eastern Washington University, allowing students to stay at South Seattle while earning a Bachelor of Science degree in technology. “Almost every business today has a computer and someone needs to keep those computers running,’’ says Kim Alexander, interim dean of technical education at South Seattle Community College.

Kurt Kirstein, interim computer system program director at City University, says the lack of women in high-tech careers is a problem that starts early. “It first appears in the recruitment of students into undergraduate programs at the university level, but it becomes noticeably apparent during the recruitment of women into graduate programs in high tech and science,’’ Kirstein says. “With fewer applicants, there are fewer female students and fewer qualified female graduates.”

But with mentoring programs and encouragement from instructors, such as the support Peth received at Edmonds Community College, the tide can turn for women in high tech.

“It’s not as difficult as people think,’’ says Peth. “I didn’t know the first thing about computers and now I speak four different computer languages.’’

Karen West is a Bainbridge Island-based freelance writer.

©2007 Caliope Publishing Company