WBCS awards members for 2007 accomplishments at Parade of Stars Gala

The Women’s Business Council – Southwest members gathered Jan. 28 at the Morton Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas for its 12th Annual Parade of Stars Gala to honor the 2007 accomplishments of exemplary women’s business enterprises and the corporations that support them. Don McKneely, president of Business News Group, was the emcee for the evening, addressing the 400 guests in attendance.

This year’s award winners included:
WBE of the Year – CRC Group, Inc., Patricia Rodriguez Christian, president
WBE Rising Star – MEB Construction, Eve Fields, president, and Becky Whelan, vice president and chief financial officer
WBE Advocate of the Year – Valerie Freeman, CEO, Imprimis Group
Corporation of the Year – Texas Instruments
Corporate Rising Star – Dell Inc.
Corporate Advocate of the Year – Connie Magers, manager of supplier diversity development, JCPenney
WBE Volunteer of the Year –Dianne Fletcher, CEO, Purdy-McGuire
Corporate Volunteer of the Year – Debbie Barnard, senior procurement associate, ExxonMobil
Regional Volunteer of the Year – Jan Harper, owner, Employment Research Services

These businesses, along with the WBCS membership, contributed to the economy by generating more than $3 billion in 2007.That represents the average revenue per business of $6.26 million, a 23 percent increase over 2006, according to the WBCS. “The annual gala honors women business enterprises that have achieved success and positively contributed to their industries and their communities, along with corporations that understand the value of supporting these WBEs,” said Debbie Hurst,president of WBCS.“Everyone benefits from this cooperation.The WBEs are aided on their pathway to success, and the supporting corporations as well as the communities at large are enhanced by the value these enterprises add.”

This year’s event sponsors were: Title – JCPenney; Underwriters – BNSF Railway, Frito-Lay, Morgan Stanley,Texas Instruments and TXU; Platinum – Alcatel-Lucent, EDS, American Airlines, ExxonMobil, Lockheed Martin, Shell and Women’s Enterprise;Gold – Baylor Healthcare and Southwest Airlines; Silver – Austin Industries, Brinker International, Capgemini Energy, City of Dallas, Corporate Express,DCCCD, Dell, DFW International Airport, Fluor, Haley-Greer, IBM, Jackson Walker, LOPEZGARCIA GROUP, Sabre Holdings, Sanmina – SCI, UPS and Windstream.
Other sponsors were: Diamond – Business Interiors, CRC Group, Inc., CFj Manufacturing, Consumer and Market Insights, ETC Group Inc.,Icon Information Consultants,Marketwave,MDI, K Strategies Group LLC and The TransSynery Group; Emerald AD-A-Staff, Inc., Akorbi Language Consulting, Bell Janitorial Services, BIZPHYX, Inc., BKM Total Office of Texas, EduCorp, Fit to Print, Superior Search & Staffing, The Warrior Group and Wynne Transportation; and Ruby – Artful Corporate Interiors, Bergerac Company, EventLink International, Inc., Gilbert Financial Services, Joy Promotions, Inc., Karlee, Inc., Marfield Corporate Stationery, Maximum Leverage, MEB Construction LLC,Pinnacle Technical Resources,Purdy-McGuire,Telecopy, Inc., Texas Moving Co., Inc. and Valerie & Co.
WPEO honors members, gains partnership Three hundred members and sponsors of the Women Presidents’ Educational Organization celebrated their corporate and public entity partnerships on Jan. 24 at the Haworth showroom in Manhattan, N.Y. The WPEO honored more than 50 corporations, government agencies and nonprofit organizations committed to advancing workplace diversity and inclusion. The WPEO also announced a new partnership with New York State,which allows WPEO-certified women’s business enterprises to fast track their state certification. Michael Jones-Bey, director of Empire State Development, attended to co-sign the Memorandum of Understanding with WPEO President and Founder Marsha Firestone, Ph.D. The WPEO currently maintains a similar relationship with the City of New York. Among those honored were Altria Group;AT&T; Avaya;Avis Budget Group, Inc.;AXA Equitable; BAE Systems; Baker Botts LLP; Bank of America; Capital One;Citigroup;City of New York;Colgate-Palmolive; Con Edison; Contemporary Graphics; Cornell University; Deutsche Bank; Eckert, Seamans, Cherin & Mellott LLC; Enterprise Rent-A-Car; Ernst & Young; Exxon Mobil Corp.; Goldman Sachs; HIP; IBM; Johnson & Johnson; JP Morgan Chase & Co.; Lehman Brothers; Macy’s East/Bloomingdale’s; Major League Baseball; MasterCard; Merck; Merrill Lynch; MetLife; Microsoft; Morgan Stanley; NBC Universal; New York Life; Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp.; PepsiCo; Pfizer, Inc.; Pitney Bowes; Price Waterhouse Coopers; Prudential; Public Service Enterprise Group; Schering- Plough; The Hertz Corp.;Time Warner; University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey; UPS; Verizon; Wachovia; Weil, Gotshal & Manges; and Wyndham Worldwide. For more information on the WPEO, visit www.wpeo.us.
A C C E N T ON B U S I N E S S
A simple handshake leads to a career in coaching leaders BY TONIE AUER

Laura Morales was a skinny little girl with thick eyeglasses and lots of self-image issues.Shy, awkward and the youngest of four, she found herself blending with the walls. That is until a young friend of hers ran up to Morales’ aunt, introduced herself and shook her hand. “I can still see this girl and remember thinking ‘how did she do that,’” Morales said.
Morales, age 12 at the time, recognized how impressed her aunt was in regard to her friend. “I thought ‘how great is that?’ That was a changing point in my life. It was from that moment that I realized that I didn’t know what I was so afraid of,” Morales said. “That started things. I realized that if I made efforts, especially to help someone feel not so awkward or let them know I was interested in them, it opened up a whole new world.”

From that point on,she became more involved in school activities and her confidence grew. Coming from a lower-middle class Hispanic family, Morales took that confidence and followed the encouragement and applied to Southern Methodist University, where she received a grant and a scholarship. All in all witnessing that one handshake changed her course and outlook on life.

Today, she is the president of Houston-based Energize Your Outlook, a business coaching practice which focuses primarily on helping business executives motivate their employees to create trust within their teams. “Improvement in morale is a natural result of being positive, building trust and commitment from within your team,”Morales explained.“By exploring and understanding the basis from which you are leading your team, [whether] sales representatives, project managers, accountants, engineers, customer service representatives, etc., you can literally bring about positive changes that will successfully spread throughout your entire organization.”

Morales worked in the telecommunications industry for more than 22 years in a variety of positions in sales management, support management, retention and highgrowth sales and marketing and international business development. “My background was in sales and it seemed that every six months for the last two years I was [with my former company] we had a reorganization,” Morales said. “Like most corporations we ended up with a smaller budget, but giant quotas. So, I had to try to get my people to work as a team, and achieve these huge evenue/sales goals. It was a gigantic challenge, but it really helped me because it showed me that I have something to offer.” Morales said she wanted to do something else, but still wanted to interact with people.That led her to branch out on her own with Energize Your Outlook. “I wanted to be able to have more control of my time,” she said.“My main focus was to go into coaching, but I’m also enjoying speaking now. I have been told that I have a gift. My interest is in helping others succeed; to inspire them to be more than they thought they could be.”