While the Andrus Center’s Women & Leadership conference has primarily packed the stage with national women leaders at the podium from business, non-profits and media, the final panel of the event featured a collection of Idaho Women Pacesetters.
Among them:
Cherie Buckner Webb | Idaho State Senator
Linda Copple-Trout | Former Chief Justice, Idaho Supreme Court
Nancy Lemas | President and CEO, Lemas Investment Group
Dee Sarton | KTVB Anchor
Luci Willits | Chief of Staff, Superintendent Tom Luna
How do you define your success?
Justice Copple-Trout – Being the first Chief Justice, it demonstrated to women and especially female law students, that it was indeed possible. I encourage all of you to do what you think would be important to accomplish.
Dee Sarton – Being able to be in an industry where I was able to do important work, and to be part of telling the story. I started out trying to be a man-woman in the media and then became a woman in the media with a female perspective, perhaps different, perhaps the same but important that it is at the table. The female perspective is not only valid, it’s important.
Nancy Lemas – I know I’ve made a difference in all the industries I’ve been involved in. I was often the first women in those positions in the industries I worked in. Through my success, I have opened doors. Also, how many times I’ve been knocked down over the years, picked myself up and dusted myself off and moved forward. What I was sure to do with my children growing up, was always put a mentor in front of them. With my daughters, seeing women in positions of professional leadership.
Luci Willits – Success has meant survival. For women, the days are long and the years are short. If you survive and are a survivor you are successful. If I can make a difference for my children and your children then life is a beautiful thing.
Cherie Buckner-Webb – I have this amazing heritage, an inheritance – of all the women who came before me and the sisterhood of the women empowering and supporting me by my side. Success is being here today and being able to pass that on. Success for me is that I learned some lessons. I need to show up, stand up, speak up and sometimes, shut up. (Makes me think back on her keynote at Go Lead’s Spring Conference a few years ago)
Other insights shared:
Cherie Buckner-Webb – As women we need to learn how to have conflict. There is no term like “cat fight” for men. Let’s learn how to have conflict. Sometimes the answer is ‘no’
Nancy Lemas – We can’t take conflict personally in businesses.
Luci Willits – I never felt like I had to behave like a man. I’ve often felt pressure as a young, married mother and the choices I made. I have learned to embrace that and to make that part of me and bring that up in business and to be true to my values.
Dee Sarton: I do see myself as a role model, because I interact with so many young women who come through our station. And I think it is a wonderful thing to think I’ve been part of such a change in our society. Young women must figure out how to balance career and family, if family is important to them. As a role model now, what I hope I can impart is doing the job – but also ‘doing your life’ – and important that is. (2 degrees of separation, Luci interned with Dee while in college and through having that work/life conversation with Lee, Luci changed her career path)
Luci Willits: Idaho is a very patriarchal society and a very male dominated state. The best thing we can do is to get women in positions of hiring.