Federal Way Women’s Summit speakers talk equity, empowering women in STEM, business

Published 9:00 am Monday, May 2, 2016

‘Men-only’ meetings weren’t unheard of when Rebecca Martin, now the CEO of the Greater Federal Way Chamber of Commerce, was just starting out.

The male-dominated industry where Martin worked as the director of government affairs, a port authority, sometimes required meetings at clubs where she didn’t have a seat at the table.

“I literally, in my lifetime, could not go in a room to attend the meeting because it was men-only,” Martin said. “It really, actually happened, and I was the generation that got in. I can’t imagine what it was like for the two generations before me.”

While Martin acknowledges the progress that’s been made since then, she’s still looking to the future. Part of that is the implementation of the first Women’s Summit under Martin’s reign, which was held April 20.

More than 50 women, as well as two men, packed the room at Gallucci’s DaVita Cafe to listen to eight speakers discuss women in the workforce, the challenges they face, how to overcome those hurdles and ways to empower the next generation of business leaders.

“I’ve been in the workforce for many, many years,” Martin said. “The pay, parity for pay, continues to be an issue. It was 77 cents on the dollar when we announced it, but as of last week we make 79 cents on the dollar.”

Martin said, in her career thus far, that’s “only a two-cent increase” so “there’s work to be done.”

Topics at the summit ranged from the benefits of providing micro-finance loans to impoverished women around the world to investing in women in the science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, sector here in the Northwest. Because careers in STEM tend to be male-dominated and pay higher incomes, there’s been a push to get more women into these fields.

Keynote speakers included Itzbeth Menjivar, the development director for financial empowerment at VisionFund, a partner of World Vision; Rebecca Lovell, the director of entrepreneurship and industry for Seattle; and Maggi Molina, a co-founder of VetStartups. At least six other women also spoke.

Lovell said the Seattle region ranks third in fastest-growing startup ecosystems in the country, but it’s 15th in women in entrepreneurship because investors aren’t investing in female-led startups nearly as often as in those owned by men.

“It’s not just about gender equity and race and social justice, though I hold those very dear to my heart, but from a purely pragmatic perspective, when you don’t support women entrepreneurs, you’re really missing out,” Lovell said. “There’s a recent study from Business Insider that shows that teams with at least one woman founder perform 63 percent better than all-male teams.”

Lovell said diverse groups tend to make better decisions versus the “monolithic rubber stamp” model.

“Women reflect half of our workforce and probably half of our consumer population, so to leave us out of that equation, whether it’s as a founder or executive level, we’re all missing out from purely practical standpoint,” she said.

Lovell previously served as Seattle’s first Startup Advocate and has served as the program director for the Alliance of Angels, the executive director for the Northwest Entrepreneur Network, the chief business officer for GeekWire and the adjunct instructor on venture capital investing for the University of Washington Foster School of Business MBA program.

Recognized as one of the top 100 women in technology from the Puget Sound Business Journal, Lovell said leveling the playing field for women starts with education. Women often get discouraged to pursue STEM education in college and stay away from careers in that field, she said.

“We’ve got a system problem,” Lovell said. “It starts in early education and continues into college and the workforce and continues at the executive level and into the board room.”

Although she’s “delighted with where [she is] today,” Lovell wonders if her career path would have been different if she’d had a female mentor while she was on her high school math team so she could have imagined herself in that sector.

“One thing we’re trying to do is make sure our young women are getting access to hands-on entrepreneurial experiences,” she said, citing startup weekend events just for girls as ways to provide more opportunity.

Molina, one of the keynote speakers at the summit, is among women who have been successful in the startup world. As a co-founder with two men, VetStartups connects local colleges with veterans who utilize funds from the GI Bill so they can have access to coding education – a program the GI Bill typically wouldn’t fund.

But Molina took an “eclectic” path to get there.

A high school dropout, radar technician for the Air Force, an attorney and an electrician, Molina has endured her fair share of challenges.

“[I] loved blue-collar work – carried around a 10-foot ladder all day and was in fantastic shape – but that was from 2011-13 and that experience was more regressive than my time in the service,” she said, noting that military employed less than 2 percent of women who worked as radar technicians. “The number of women in the construction field is about 5 percent.”

Molina said VetStartups uses all the best parts of the military culture – the camaraderie, trust, and the working together with very few resources.

“It’s perfect for the startup world,” she said. “It makes complete sense. I would actually argue it’s the model that works better for women, it’s the model that works better for civilian world.”

Martin said the Women’s Summit “isn’t about teaching women to do things” but about showcasing women who are “doing it.”

“These are women who can help you get it done,” Martin said. “These are the connections that the Chamber is going to bring to all of us so that we have success.”

When asked if additional initiatives will come from the summit for the Chamber, Martin replied that “the answer must be yes.”

“It’s not about men and it’s not about women, because we’re in this together and you can’t separate women out,” she said. “You have to acknowledge, respect and work with them because that is the only way we’re going to thrive – for the greater good for everybody that’s here.”

Martin said the business community has to make decisions that will outlast those making them.

“Yes, business creates wealth, but women have a particular view that wealth has to be for another generation, maybe two generations,” she said. “My grandmother and mother, who broke those rules to get those laws changed for the generation of our daughters and their daughters, they didn’t do it just for them. And so we’ve got to have our mind on it.”

And as the CEO of the Greater Federal Way Chamber of Commerce, Martin’s mind is on making those changes through the system that supports men and women around the world – commerce.