Three women who overcame challenges to become industry leaders highlight CWC

 

Three women who overcame daunting challenges – one as a Gold Star spouse who now leads a non-profit helping veterans and their families; one who pivoted from a high-pressure legal career to the family newspaper business to being a lecturer at Yale Law School; and a woman who rose to the top in a male-dominated industry – shared their stories at the annual Culver Women’s Celebration.

Amy Looney Heffernan, president of the Travis Manion Foundation, Jennifer Borg, a visiting clinical lecturer at Yale Law School who serves as Of Counsel at Pashman Stein Walder Hayden and Amy Smith-Yoder, a retired steel industry executive, told Culver Girls Academy students about the need for perseverance in overcoming obstacles.

“Never underestimate the importance of perseverance and looking at rejection as an opportunity to explore something different or new,” Borg said.

Heffernan told the students she was living the perfect life 15 years ago when tragedy struck. Her husband Lt. Brendan Looney, a 29-year-old Navy SEAL, was on his 58th and final mission in Afghanistan when he and eight others died in a Black Hawk helicopter crash on Sept. 21, 2010. In the shock that followed, Heffernan said she faced a key decision: retreat into isolation or choose a life of purpose.

“I decided to say ‘yes’ instead of ‘no,’ ” she told the students. “ ‘Yes’ to showing up when I wanted to stay home. ‘Yes’ to conversations that were hard instead of easy. ‘Yes’ to opportunities to serve, even when I didn’t yet feel ready.”

That led her to take a job at the Travis Manion Foundation, which is dedicated to empowering veterans and strengthening communities nationwide. Manion, a Marine first lieutenant, was a friend of Heffernan’s husband who was killed by a sniper in Iraq in 2007.

Through the foundation, Heffernan met veterans and families of the fallen who are transforming grief into service by mentoring young people and strengthening their communities. Their example, she said, renewed her understanding of leadership.

“Leadership is not about never falling,” she said. “It’s about choosing, again and again, to stand back up — and then reaching back to help someone else do the same.”

 

 

Borg told students at Culver, known for its leadership-focused boarding environment, how she reinvented herself through resilience. A boarding-school alumna, Borg said she was an “OK student” and “OK athlete” who didn’t get into her top choice colleges, yet it still worked out. She initially planned to transfer from the college that accepted her but decided to stay because she thrived there.‑school alumna, Borg said she was an “OK student‑choice colleges

She went on to graduate law school and joined a large international firm where all-nighters were routine and “there was absolutely no work-life balance.” After almost missing a baby shower she was hosting because a partner made her stay late, Borg decided to make a change. ‑nighters were routine and “there was absolutely ‑life balance.”

She became the in-house counsel for her family’s newspaper in New Jersey, the Bergen Record. She found deeper purpose there working in community service and fighting for First Amendment rights and the public’s right to know. After the 9/11 attacks, one of the newspaper’s photographers, captured the now-iconic photo of three firefighters raising the American flag at Ground Zero. Borg sought out the firefighters and, with them, licensed the photo to raise millions for 9/11 charities.‑iconic

“My newspaper days were my most fulfilling,” she said.

As the newspaper industry declined, the family sold the newspaper in 2016. Around the same time, her marriage of 16 years came to an end. She credits family, friends and therapy with getting her through, and she embraced another pivot. She started teaching in a media law clinic at Yale and practicing at a mid-size law firm that prioritizes a work-life balance.

Borg finished by telling the students that she believes “the purpose of life is a life of purpose.”

 

 

She finished with a quote from anthropologist Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

She told the students: “You are those individuals.”

Smith-Yoder told the students how she navigated her way to a successful 34-year career in the steel industry despite being one of the few female executives.

She acknowledged opportunities sometimes came because a female was needed in a conference or a program. But she said what was key to her success was her willingness to ask for promotions, she said about half of the 20 promotions she received she asked for, but she also was willing to take any assignment.

“I accepted it and I excelled at it,” she said.

A turning point came after a corporate reorganization left her adrift at a mill with no official role and few allies. For a year, she walked the plant, found broken processes and fixed many of them.

When a costly systems migration problem left millions of dollars in steel inventory stranded, she volunteered. Six months later, she came up with a solution that saved U.S. Steel millions of dollars.

She said her career took off after that. She was named general manager of the Mon Valley Works, responsible for overseeing operations at four facilities near her hometown of Pittsburgh. 

“It was the best, absolute best part of my career,” she said.

She said customers always wanted to know how she got that position. She said it was because she was fair, she was a problem-solver, she made work fun, she cared, she was a good communicator and she cared a lot.

“I was female change agent,” she said.  

After retiring, she spent the past three years as a caregiver, first for her late husband, then her late father and now for her mother, who has dementia.  She said she gets through it by depending on what she always has counted on.                                 

“I have always had this natural-born resiliency and persistence to never, ever, ever give up,” she said.

It was a trait shared by all three women, the ability to persevere, no matter the challenge.