What was your first job and what did you learn from it?

General Electric - Information Services Business Division - Sales & Marketing. I assisted in pulling together sales proposals. Working with the sales folks enabled me to understand how vital information/data is to a corporation.

What inspired you to choose your current field or the position you currently hold?

I had worked on the operational side of the business for many years, prior to migrating over to IR. I had been challenged with being a user champion/manager in the implementation of several key applications systems: order operations; sales, marketing and forecasting.

It challenged me with encouraging the IR/IT folks to understand the business side of application development, and I could then bring the value - add business process knowledge to IR/IT.

In working on IR systems during the past 10 years, my previous experience on the business side has brought a full partnership engagement in applications development. Very rewarding.

Why would you encourage other women or young women and girls to choose careers in your field? What advice would you give someone who wanted to choose your career?

The IR field is quite open to bright, articulate women and girls. It is a field ripe with opportunities - whether your field of expertise be in business analysis, technology, applications development or applications support. Read the newspapers, and IT magazines - there are women making names for themselves on a daily business in this field.

Listen to your teachers and mentors. Network with women/men in the field. Always be open to opportunities to learn, internships, job rotations.

What motivates or inspires you on a daily basis in your field or job?

When I know that an applications system that we have developed enhances someone's productivity, reduces redundancy in data duplication, provides a ROI for the business. Daily feedback from the business that our vision, strategy is enabling their business via tactical implementations with leading edge technologies.

What do you see as the single most interesting element of your work?

Providing strategic and tactical direction in setting up full partnerships between the business community and IR. Realizing the benefits of a full partnership and seeing this motivate the organizations.

Why is your field or industry important to society?

Providing data and decision support systems provides an inherently better foundation for organizations to rapidly make fundamental and key decisions in moving the business ahead. Assists in producing better revenues/per employee, reduces overhead and expenses. Improved stock prices for all shareholders!

What is your vision for your industry's or field's future? What are some of the exciting things to watch for in your field or industry?

JAVA, JAVA, JAVA. This is one of the coming year's largest investment within Sun and the industry. College students aren't learning PASCAL or COBOL - they're learning JAVA now. With enthusiasm! Everyone's looking to leverage this language with their internal systems as well as touching their customers.

What values are the most important to you and what do you value in others? How do you prioritize these values in your daily life?

My value system is fairly consistent. I covet integrity, trust, fairness and focus - whether it be work or play.

What do you think are the most important character traits to develop in order to succeed professionally?

Integrity and trust - you need to exemplify these traits to your peers, management above you and your staff. Being consistent in these areas at all levels helps tremendously in being understood clearly.

Who is your hero, mentor or person you most admire and why?

Alan Hutton, VP/General Manager of a company I used to work for. He began international operations as an expatriate and lived through tremendous challenges in Europe. He understood the business fundamentals of what needed to get done, what needed to change and how to effectively implement change and still produce results. Through it all, his staff, upper management and peers liked and respected him.

What is your favorite book and why?

"The Leadership Challenge" - it teaches you the basics and gives current examples of leadership. It crosses the gender lines and all organizational types. It puts you into a positive frame of mind in fostering relationships, providing collaboration, gaining quick wins and strengthening others. Extremely positive building block book that I often refer to.

What book would you recommend to someone who knows nothing about your field or industry but would like to know more about it?

"Effective Project Planning & Management - Getting the Job Done" I like to believe that IR/IT is just one element of a systems implementation. Doing the job right and getting it done efficiently and effectively is everything in our business. Not enough emphasis is placed on this aspect of our work. We can have the greatest technology in the world, but if it doesn't fit into the business model, is too costly or complicated to run, or the infrastructure support too unwieldy; then we haven't done our job properly. Effective communications throughout the project life cycle is everything.

What technology has changed your life professionally or personally for the better?

UNIX/JAVA, since I came from a long history of mainframe companies. Our technology is quite exciting not only for my IR staff, but in working with the business users. We can easily prototype and have end users quickly visualize applications, greatly accelerating the functional specification and development process. Aids greatly during the design review process.

What are your future goals?

To continue to learn from my leaders, management, peers and staff. Continue to rotate into different functional areas to gain a better perspective on "running the business". Gaining the knowledge enables me to better understand the "other side's" perspective in dealing with daily issues and challenges.

What do you do to relax?

I love to snow ski - the best challenge to me - just you and the mountain. It clears the brain of everything else! When I can, play tennis and water ski. Last, but not least spend time with my family: husband and daughter - bicycling, skiing, computer games, painting, and games! We love games!