First to the Gate
Meet seven Bay Area women who have changed history—simply by doing what they love most.
posted November 20, 2006 8:06PM
It should come as no surprise that Bay Area women have done more than their fair share of hurdling gender barriers. People come to San Francisco when they’re ready to do great things, and people born here have inherently high expectations—of themselves and others—etched into their bones. One of the city’s most famous landmarks was built by Lillie Hitchcock Coit, a 19th-century maverick who ran around the Barbary Coast in trousers, smoking cigars, gambling and hopping fire engines.
Today’s pioneers may not all be as colorful, but they occupy every spectrum of public life. In the past two decades, Dianne Feinstein became the first California woman elected to the US Senate (after serving as SF’s first female mayor); eBay CEO Meg Whitman became the first female Internet billionaire; and in 2004, locally grown Sofia Coppola was the first American woman to be nominated for an Academy Award in directing (for Lost in Translation) and the first woman in the world up for both the Best Director and Best Picture awards. Within City Hall, progress is even faster: The administration of Mayor Gavin Newsom includes San Francisco’s first female district attorney, Kamala Harris; first female police chief, Heather Fong; and first female fire chief, Joanne Hayes-White.
It’s not only the bold-faced names who have made history. In the following pages, we’ll introduce you to some First Women you may not know: the nation’s first professor of neuro-surgery, who also happens to be the first woman to finish the Bay to Breakers; the first woman to announce a World Series game; the first woman elected to the governing board of the California State Bar; the only woman to climb alone up the nose of El Capitan; and the only woman to drive an eight-ton cable car up Powell Street. And of course, there’s HP’s former CEO, Carly Fiorina—the first woman to head a Fortune 20 company—and US Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, who raised five children in Presidio Heights before becoming a politician and who, in January, as Speaker of the House, will occupy the highest elected office ever attained by an American woman.
A San Francisco matriarch two seats away from the most powerful position on Earth?
We think that says it all.
HEAD OF THE HOUSE
Nancy Pelosi is a lot of things: an eight-time US representative, a fundraising and organizing dynamo for the Democratic Party, the first woman to lead her party in Congress (she became Minority Leader in 2002). And now, with the Democratic sweep of the November 7 elections, she’s about to become America’s first female Speaker of the House.
But the 66-year-old is foremost a mother of five (whom she bore in a record six years, by the way) and grandmother of six—a fact she mentions constantly. Maybe that’s why the usual “for the children” battle cry sounds a little different coming from her mouth. “Politics is about one thing—our children,” she says. “When I take that gavel from the current speaker [in January], I’ll be taking it from the hands of special interests and putting it into the hands of America’s children.”
It may also be why her opponents’ attempts to panic the electorate by casting her as a “San Francisco liberal” seem to fall flat. First of all, she is unapologetic about her liberal values: staunchly pro-choice, in favor of gun control and stem-cell research, adamantly opposed to the war in Iraq and to the president’s tax cuts. But she’s also a Roman Catholic married 43 years (to Paul Pelosi), the daughter of an Italian-American family from Baltimore, where her father served first as a US representative and then as mayor. It is perhaps this mix of the traditional and progressive that gives Pelosi more room than most to proudly claim the liberal label. “San Francisco has a sense of opti-mism, an entrepreneurial spirit and a tremendous pool of talent. We have an $8.82 minimum wage, and all children under age 25 are insured. Those are the kinds of values most Americans want.”
With Pelosi, Democrats seem to have finally found their spine. She doesn’t mince words or split hairs. She’s called the president incompetent and his policy on Iraq “a dismal failure.” In return, she doesn’t mind it when Republicans denounce her or when countless conservative columnists and bloggers lampoon her. “I grew up in a political family,” she says. “I have a thick skin.”
Pelosi didn’t plan on becoming a politician—she spent her 20s and 30s as a homemaker and Democratic Party volunteer, and didn’t run for office until her youngest child was 18. But here she is, preparing to be sworn in to the highest elected position an American woman has attained. “It sends a message to girls across the country that they can achieve power, wield power and breathe the air at that altitude,” she says. “As the first woman Speaker of the House, I’ll be making certain that I won’t be the last.” —Robin Rinaldi
DRIVE, SHE SAID
Though SF’s cable cars are world-famous on their own, a trip on the Powell–Mason line offers an extra perk unavailable on the other routes—a ride with living legend Fannie Mae Barnes.
Barnes, a 61-year-old Oakland resident, made history nine years ago when she became the first female “grip” on a cable car, a position previously—and even to this day—considered a man’s job. The Georgia native, who came to SF in 1968 by way of Chicago, remains the only woman to have accomplished this Herculean feat.
A 25-year Muni veteran, Barnes started driving a bus for the city in 1981, and moved to cable cars in 1990. “I didn’t qualify the first time I tried for the grip position,” she says. “Being a grip requires a lot of physical strength, and I wasn’t quite ready, having driven a bus for the previous 11 years.”
Manually navigating an eight-ton cable car on SF’s dizzyingly steep hills is even more strenuous than it looks. To move the car, the driver heaves back a lever controlling the “grip”—a 260-pound vise-like device that attaches the car to the cable, which runs at a steady 9.5 mph beneath the street. To stop the car, the driver releases the grip and applies the brakes. Apart from sheer physical strength (especially in the upper body), gripping also requires agility, quick reflexes and steely concentration.
It wasn’t just the physical challenge that pushed Barnes to the front of the car, where she remained a grip for three years. “People thought that women just couldn’t do the job, and I wanted to prove them wrong. I knew all along that I had what it took, but I had to do it for all the women.” Now a conductor on the Powell–Mason line, Barnes plans on retiring next year and “kicking back with my grandbabies”—four-year-old Cinque and two-year-old Nairobi—but not without a chance to repeat history. Beginning April 7, she’ll take the helm for one last two-month run. “Everyone says there’s only one grip woman, but I would love to see other women follow me.” —Kimberly Yen
YES, IT IS BRAIN SURGERY
“Sometimes I’d get up in the middle of the night, head to the hospital and wonder why I ever chose this profession,” recalls Frances Conley, M.D. “But looking back, I wouldn’t give it up for anything.” Six years ago, on her 60th birthday, Conley retired from a 35-year career in neuro-surgery. The Palo Alto native was the first female surgery intern at Stanford University Hospital in the ’60s. “I had professors try to talk me out of my decision,” she explains. “But I fell in love with it.”
Her unrelenting dedication helped make Conley the chief of neurosurgery at the Veterans Administration Palo Alto Health Care System in 1975 and a professor of surgery at Stanford in 1988—she was the first woman to gain a tenured full professorship in neurosurgery at an American medical school. It also helped her deal with vociferous criticism for the stance she took on sexism in academia—criticism that culminated in her leaving Stanford in 1991 (she returned a year later, after a change in administration). Conley chronicled that experience in her 1998 book, Walking Out on the Boys (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). “I thought the story was worth telling, if for no other reason than to leave a historical legacy for people looking back on women in the medical field between 1960 and 2000,” Conley says.
Conley, who has been married to 1956 Olympic javelin competitor Phil Conley for 43 years—she chased him around a track, introduced herself and asked him to show her how to throw a javelin—also made headlines in 1971, when she became the first woman to complete the 7.46-mile Bay to Breakers race. The next day, her local newspaper described her as a “Palo Alto housewife.” “I howled when I read that,” she says. “I thought it was so funny, but the only two questions they asked me were, ‘Where do you live?’ and ‘Are you married?’”
Now living in Sea Ranch, Conley is working on a novel. Earlier this year, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Stanford Medical Alumni Association. “When they called about the award, I was flabbergasted,” she says. “But what’s been most satisfying is the patient who does well and later writes to me, saying, ‘I am what I am today because of you.’ That’s what has kept me going all these years.” —Jennie Nunn
SUCH GREAT HEIGHTS
Eight years ago, Jacqueline Florine stood in the meadow at the base of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, staring up at its landmark 7,569-foot monolith. The former model had scaled El Cap numerous times before using various routes, but that day she thought, Maybe “the Nose”—the most well-known route—could stand to be conquered by a very pretty girl.
If she were successful, she would be the first woman to complete a solo climb on that route. “Soloing the nose is the ultimate statement of competency,” says the former New Yorker and current East Bay resident, whose face graced the covers of Vogue and Glamour in the ’80s. “I don’t know about you, but I get such joy in becoming competent!”
Florine began her ascent on a sunny day in June 2002, carrying more than 70 pounds of gear, including enough water to last five days. She claims that her training regimen—which involved climbing other routes on El Cap during stormy weather—was more difficult than actually traversing the Nose, but she does bow down to one passage on the route called Texas Flake Chimney.
“You climb 50 feet without any protection,” says the 40-something mother of two. “There’s nothing to keep you from hitting the rock below. You’re always managing risk, making sure you don’t end up as paste on the ground for someone to clean up.”
Florine completed her solo mission in an impressive four and a half days. But how’s this for a little perspective: Her husband, speed climber Hans Florine—the current speed-record holder on the Nose—completed the route in two hours and 48 minutes with Yuji Hirayama in 2002.
“Hans challenges me to think in terms of what I’ve accomplished, instead of becoming overwhelmed by what I haven’t,” says Florine, who is also the first woman to climb all 14 of California’s 14,000-foot peaks in one continuous push (nine days, 12 hours and 17 minutes).
“I’m not an extraordinary athlete,” says Florine. “I’m just average. But I figure out the stuff no other women have done, and then I go for it.” —Leilani Labong
WOMAN ON TOP
It’s a hard-knock life when you’re a trailblazer. Ousted Hewlett-Packard chair and CEO Carly Fiorina knows this better than anyone. On February 9, 2005, Fiorina, the first woman to helm HP, was dismissed after the board of directors’ plan to downshift her power was leaked to the Wall Street Journal. The fact that she was responsible for bringing HP back from the brink—before she came along, the technology giant had missed its financial goals for nine consecutive quarters—was continually overshadowed by the problematic merger with Compaq Computers that capped her controversial three-year tenure. Amid much resistance, Fiorina finally agreed to a $21 million severance package. “I was so sad,” says the 52-year-old Texas native. “Sad that I couldn’t say good-bye, sad that I couldn’t see the results of all the work I’d put in.”
Her recent book, Tough Choices (Portfolio), chronicles her rise to the top, from UCLA law-school dropout to vice president of operations at AT&T to regular on Fortune magazine’s annual “50 Most Powerful Women in Business” (six years in a row). “I decided to write the book while I was on a witness stand testifying about the Compaq merger. It occurred to me then that most people don’t really understand how a business operates,” says Fiorina, who lives in Los Altos Hills and Washington, DC, with her husband, Frank Fiorina, and is currently working with several nonprofits focusing on leadership, community development and women’s empowerment.
The book engages the reader from page one with a juicy play-by-play of her exit from HP, recounting situations in which she encountered disrespect because of her gender. “I think that’s part of women’s experience still,” she says. But Fiorina’s tales of discrimination are matched—surpassed, even—by anecdotes of the countless times her colleagues supported her. She warmly recalls her stint as a secretary at Palo Alto commercial real estate firm Marcus & Millichap in the ’70s. “My bosses came to me and said, ‘We think you can do more.’ That was the first time it ever occurred to me that I could have a career in business,” she says. “If I could give women one piece of advice, it would be to seek out people who are willing to give them a chance.” —Leilani Labong
LAW AND ORDER
She went eyeball to eyeball with former Chief Justice William Rehnquist in a 1994 taxation case, but that type of thing doesn’t ruffle the feathers of attorney Joanne Garvey. “Intimidating isn’t the word I’d use to describe arguing before the Supreme Court. It was a terrific opportunity to do something I never thought I’d do,” says Garvey.
Perhaps it’s this no-nonsense attitude that has made Garvey a pioneer in the field of law. She was the first female partner at an SF firm, the first woman elected to the board of governors of the State Bar of California and the first female president of the city’s Bar Association. Garvey was also the first chairperson of the San Francisco Voluntary Legal Services program, a role she holds close to her heart. “I’ve always cared about providing legal services for the poor,” she says.
Given her achievements, it’s hard to believe that when the Oakland native graduated from Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law in 1961, she couldn’t find a job at an SF firm. Garvey moved to Santa Barbara for two years before returning to work for Kelso Cotton & Ernst, where she made partner in 1968. Despite any obstacles that she may have faced, Garvey is nonchalant about her accomplishments. “My only goal was to do the best I could, but I would think to myself, Do it right, because there are people behind you,” she says. “And I always tried to bring along other women whenever I could.”
This September, The American Lawyer honored Garvey with its annual Lifetime Achievement Award. At 71, the Kensington resident shows no signs of slowing down. The avid murder-mystery reader plays basketball for a women’s league and still has a passion for law, which she practices with SF firm Heller Ehrman: “There are very few things you can do in life that allow you to use your heart and your head, and law is one of them.” —Karen Palmer
DIAMONDS ARE A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND
“I am not a morning person,” stresses Renel Brooks-Moon over a Grey Goose cosmo at the end of a very, very long day. As host of Kiss FM’s Renel in the Morning show, she starts her day at 4 a.m. Her husband, Tommie Moon, and their German shepherd, Othello, prep her for work, helping her out the door of her Portola District house with keys, phone and the daily paper. Religiously, she hits the Starbucks at Fourth and Brannan on the way to the radio station. “The baristas are there waiting for me at 5:15 … we’re like Cheers,” she says of the coffee shop’s wee-hours regulars. With coffee in one hand and the day’s news in the other, Renel the media personality finally begins to take shape. “I don’t wake up like this,” she winks behind rhinestone glasses. “Who does?”
Mornings may be slow, but during regular business hours, watch out: 48-year-old Brooks-Moon, the first African-American woman ever to announce professional sports (she’s the official voice of the SF Giants) is a straight-shooting, fast-talking powerhouse who’s not afraid to play in the majors. “I’m the old girl in the booth,” she says of her prime seat in Club Level at AT&T Park. “The guys I work with learn from me and I learn from them, and they protect me too—no drunk fan better approach me on a Friday night!”
Brooks-Moon’s on-air career has spanned more than 20 years on local radio and television, and she’s long been a tireless community activist. “As a woman of color, I’ve had to work harder than everyone else. But if you know your shit, they’ll respect you,” she says. Her crowning achievement (so far) was becoming, with the 2002 World Series, the first woman in history to announce a national championship game; her scorecard is on display at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. “My advice to women working in a man’s world?” she asks. “Just go in there and kick ass.” —Chloé Harris
Today’s pioneers may not all be as colorful, but they occupy every spectrum of public life. In the past two decades, Dianne Feinstein became the first California woman elected to the US Senate (after serving as SF’s first female mayor); eBay CEO Meg Whitman became the first female Internet billionaire; and in 2004, locally grown Sofia Coppola was the first American woman to be nominated for an Academy Award in directing (for Lost in Translation) and the first woman in the world up for both the Best Director and Best Picture awards. Within City Hall, progress is even faster: The administration of Mayor Gavin Newsom includes San Francisco’s first female district attorney, Kamala Harris; first female police chief, Heather Fong; and first female fire chief, Joanne Hayes-White.
It’s not only the bold-faced names who have made history. In the following pages, we’ll introduce you to some First Women you may not know: the nation’s first professor of neuro-surgery, who also happens to be the first woman to finish the Bay to Breakers; the first woman to announce a World Series game; the first woman elected to the governing board of the California State Bar; the only woman to climb alone up the nose of El Capitan; and the only woman to drive an eight-ton cable car up Powell Street. And of course, there’s HP’s former CEO, Carly Fiorina—the first woman to head a Fortune 20 company—and US Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, who raised five children in Presidio Heights before becoming a politician and who, in January, as Speaker of the House, will occupy the highest elected office ever attained by an American woman.
A San Francisco matriarch two seats away from the most powerful position on Earth?
We think that says it all.
HEAD OF THE HOUSE
Nancy Pelosi is a lot of things: an eight-time US representative, a fundraising and organizing dynamo for the Democratic Party, the first woman to lead her party in Congress (she became Minority Leader in 2002). And now, with the Democratic sweep of the November 7 elections, she’s about to become America’s first female Speaker of the House.
But the 66-year-old is foremost a mother of five (whom she bore in a record six years, by the way) and grandmother of six—a fact she mentions constantly. Maybe that’s why the usual “for the children” battle cry sounds a little different coming from her mouth. “Politics is about one thing—our children,” she says. “When I take that gavel from the current speaker [in January], I’ll be taking it from the hands of special interests and putting it into the hands of America’s children.”
It may also be why her opponents’ attempts to panic the electorate by casting her as a “San Francisco liberal” seem to fall flat. First of all, she is unapologetic about her liberal values: staunchly pro-choice, in favor of gun control and stem-cell research, adamantly opposed to the war in Iraq and to the president’s tax cuts. But she’s also a Roman Catholic married 43 years (to Paul Pelosi), the daughter of an Italian-American family from Baltimore, where her father served first as a US representative and then as mayor. It is perhaps this mix of the traditional and progressive that gives Pelosi more room than most to proudly claim the liberal label. “San Francisco has a sense of opti-mism, an entrepreneurial spirit and a tremendous pool of talent. We have an $8.82 minimum wage, and all children under age 25 are insured. Those are the kinds of values most Americans want.”
With Pelosi, Democrats seem to have finally found their spine. She doesn’t mince words or split hairs. She’s called the president incompetent and his policy on Iraq “a dismal failure.” In return, she doesn’t mind it when Republicans denounce her or when countless conservative columnists and bloggers lampoon her. “I grew up in a political family,” she says. “I have a thick skin.”
Pelosi didn’t plan on becoming a politician—she spent her 20s and 30s as a homemaker and Democratic Party volunteer, and didn’t run for office until her youngest child was 18. But here she is, preparing to be sworn in to the highest elected position an American woman has attained. “It sends a message to girls across the country that they can achieve power, wield power and breathe the air at that altitude,” she says. “As the first woman Speaker of the House, I’ll be making certain that I won’t be the last.” —Robin Rinaldi
DRIVE, SHE SAID
Though SF’s cable cars are world-famous on their own, a trip on the Powell–Mason line offers an extra perk unavailable on the other routes—a ride with living legend Fannie Mae Barnes.
Barnes, a 61-year-old Oakland resident, made history nine years ago when she became the first female “grip” on a cable car, a position previously—and even to this day—considered a man’s job. The Georgia native, who came to SF in 1968 by way of Chicago, remains the only woman to have accomplished this Herculean feat.
A 25-year Muni veteran, Barnes started driving a bus for the city in 1981, and moved to cable cars in 1990. “I didn’t qualify the first time I tried for the grip position,” she says. “Being a grip requires a lot of physical strength, and I wasn’t quite ready, having driven a bus for the previous 11 years.”
Manually navigating an eight-ton cable car on SF’s dizzyingly steep hills is even more strenuous than it looks. To move the car, the driver heaves back a lever controlling the “grip”—a 260-pound vise-like device that attaches the car to the cable, which runs at a steady 9.5 mph beneath the street. To stop the car, the driver releases the grip and applies the brakes. Apart from sheer physical strength (especially in the upper body), gripping also requires agility, quick reflexes and steely concentration.
It wasn’t just the physical challenge that pushed Barnes to the front of the car, where she remained a grip for three years. “People thought that women just couldn’t do the job, and I wanted to prove them wrong. I knew all along that I had what it took, but I had to do it for all the women.” Now a conductor on the Powell–Mason line, Barnes plans on retiring next year and “kicking back with my grandbabies”—four-year-old Cinque and two-year-old Nairobi—but not without a chance to repeat history. Beginning April 7, she’ll take the helm for one last two-month run. “Everyone says there’s only one grip woman, but I would love to see other women follow me.” —Kimberly Yen
YES, IT IS BRAIN SURGERY
“Sometimes I’d get up in the middle of the night, head to the hospital and wonder why I ever chose this profession,” recalls Frances Conley, M.D. “But looking back, I wouldn’t give it up for anything.” Six years ago, on her 60th birthday, Conley retired from a 35-year career in neuro-surgery. The Palo Alto native was the first female surgery intern at Stanford University Hospital in the ’60s. “I had professors try to talk me out of my decision,” she explains. “But I fell in love with it.”
Her unrelenting dedication helped make Conley the chief of neurosurgery at the Veterans Administration Palo Alto Health Care System in 1975 and a professor of surgery at Stanford in 1988—she was the first woman to gain a tenured full professorship in neurosurgery at an American medical school. It also helped her deal with vociferous criticism for the stance she took on sexism in academia—criticism that culminated in her leaving Stanford in 1991 (she returned a year later, after a change in administration). Conley chronicled that experience in her 1998 book, Walking Out on the Boys (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). “I thought the story was worth telling, if for no other reason than to leave a historical legacy for people looking back on women in the medical field between 1960 and 2000,” Conley says.
Conley, who has been married to 1956 Olympic javelin competitor Phil Conley for 43 years—she chased him around a track, introduced herself and asked him to show her how to throw a javelin—also made headlines in 1971, when she became the first woman to complete the 7.46-mile Bay to Breakers race. The next day, her local newspaper described her as a “Palo Alto housewife.” “I howled when I read that,” she says. “I thought it was so funny, but the only two questions they asked me were, ‘Where do you live?’ and ‘Are you married?’”
Now living in Sea Ranch, Conley is working on a novel. Earlier this year, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Stanford Medical Alumni Association. “When they called about the award, I was flabbergasted,” she says. “But what’s been most satisfying is the patient who does well and later writes to me, saying, ‘I am what I am today because of you.’ That’s what has kept me going all these years.” —Jennie Nunn
SUCH GREAT HEIGHTS
Eight years ago, Jacqueline Florine stood in the meadow at the base of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, staring up at its landmark 7,569-foot monolith. The former model had scaled El Cap numerous times before using various routes, but that day she thought, Maybe “the Nose”—the most well-known route—could stand to be conquered by a very pretty girl.
If she were successful, she would be the first woman to complete a solo climb on that route. “Soloing the nose is the ultimate statement of competency,” says the former New Yorker and current East Bay resident, whose face graced the covers of Vogue and Glamour in the ’80s. “I don’t know about you, but I get such joy in becoming competent!”
Florine began her ascent on a sunny day in June 2002, carrying more than 70 pounds of gear, including enough water to last five days. She claims that her training regimen—which involved climbing other routes on El Cap during stormy weather—was more difficult than actually traversing the Nose, but she does bow down to one passage on the route called Texas Flake Chimney.
“You climb 50 feet without any protection,” says the 40-something mother of two. “There’s nothing to keep you from hitting the rock below. You’re always managing risk, making sure you don’t end up as paste on the ground for someone to clean up.”
Florine completed her solo mission in an impressive four and a half days. But how’s this for a little perspective: Her husband, speed climber Hans Florine—the current speed-record holder on the Nose—completed the route in two hours and 48 minutes with Yuji Hirayama in 2002.
“Hans challenges me to think in terms of what I’ve accomplished, instead of becoming overwhelmed by what I haven’t,” says Florine, who is also the first woman to climb all 14 of California’s 14,000-foot peaks in one continuous push (nine days, 12 hours and 17 minutes).
“I’m not an extraordinary athlete,” says Florine. “I’m just average. But I figure out the stuff no other women have done, and then I go for it.” —Leilani Labong
WOMAN ON TOP
It’s a hard-knock life when you’re a trailblazer. Ousted Hewlett-Packard chair and CEO Carly Fiorina knows this better than anyone. On February 9, 2005, Fiorina, the first woman to helm HP, was dismissed after the board of directors’ plan to downshift her power was leaked to the Wall Street Journal. The fact that she was responsible for bringing HP back from the brink—before she came along, the technology giant had missed its financial goals for nine consecutive quarters—was continually overshadowed by the problematic merger with Compaq Computers that capped her controversial three-year tenure. Amid much resistance, Fiorina finally agreed to a $21 million severance package. “I was so sad,” says the 52-year-old Texas native. “Sad that I couldn’t say good-bye, sad that I couldn’t see the results of all the work I’d put in.”
Her recent book, Tough Choices (Portfolio), chronicles her rise to the top, from UCLA law-school dropout to vice president of operations at AT&T to regular on Fortune magazine’s annual “50 Most Powerful Women in Business” (six years in a row). “I decided to write the book while I was on a witness stand testifying about the Compaq merger. It occurred to me then that most people don’t really understand how a business operates,” says Fiorina, who lives in Los Altos Hills and Washington, DC, with her husband, Frank Fiorina, and is currently working with several nonprofits focusing on leadership, community development and women’s empowerment.
The book engages the reader from page one with a juicy play-by-play of her exit from HP, recounting situations in which she encountered disrespect because of her gender. “I think that’s part of women’s experience still,” she says. But Fiorina’s tales of discrimination are matched—surpassed, even—by anecdotes of the countless times her colleagues supported her. She warmly recalls her stint as a secretary at Palo Alto commercial real estate firm Marcus & Millichap in the ’70s. “My bosses came to me and said, ‘We think you can do more.’ That was the first time it ever occurred to me that I could have a career in business,” she says. “If I could give women one piece of advice, it would be to seek out people who are willing to give them a chance.” —Leilani Labong
LAW AND ORDER
She went eyeball to eyeball with former Chief Justice William Rehnquist in a 1994 taxation case, but that type of thing doesn’t ruffle the feathers of attorney Joanne Garvey. “Intimidating isn’t the word I’d use to describe arguing before the Supreme Court. It was a terrific opportunity to do something I never thought I’d do,” says Garvey.
Perhaps it’s this no-nonsense attitude that has made Garvey a pioneer in the field of law. She was the first female partner at an SF firm, the first woman elected to the board of governors of the State Bar of California and the first female president of the city’s Bar Association. Garvey was also the first chairperson of the San Francisco Voluntary Legal Services program, a role she holds close to her heart. “I’ve always cared about providing legal services for the poor,” she says.
Given her achievements, it’s hard to believe that when the Oakland native graduated from Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law in 1961, she couldn’t find a job at an SF firm. Garvey moved to Santa Barbara for two years before returning to work for Kelso Cotton & Ernst, where she made partner in 1968. Despite any obstacles that she may have faced, Garvey is nonchalant about her accomplishments. “My only goal was to do the best I could, but I would think to myself, Do it right, because there are people behind you,” she says. “And I always tried to bring along other women whenever I could.”
This September, The American Lawyer honored Garvey with its annual Lifetime Achievement Award. At 71, the Kensington resident shows no signs of slowing down. The avid murder-mystery reader plays basketball for a women’s league and still has a passion for law, which she practices with SF firm Heller Ehrman: “There are very few things you can do in life that allow you to use your heart and your head, and law is one of them.” —Karen Palmer
DIAMONDS ARE A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND
“I am not a morning person,” stresses Renel Brooks-Moon over a Grey Goose cosmo at the end of a very, very long day. As host of Kiss FM’s Renel in the Morning show, she starts her day at 4 a.m. Her husband, Tommie Moon, and their German shepherd, Othello, prep her for work, helping her out the door of her Portola District house with keys, phone and the daily paper. Religiously, she hits the Starbucks at Fourth and Brannan on the way to the radio station. “The baristas are there waiting for me at 5:15 … we’re like Cheers,” she says of the coffee shop’s wee-hours regulars. With coffee in one hand and the day’s news in the other, Renel the media personality finally begins to take shape. “I don’t wake up like this,” she winks behind rhinestone glasses. “Who does?”
Mornings may be slow, but during regular business hours, watch out: 48-year-old Brooks-Moon, the first African-American woman ever to announce professional sports (she’s the official voice of the SF Giants) is a straight-shooting, fast-talking powerhouse who’s not afraid to play in the majors. “I’m the old girl in the booth,” she says of her prime seat in Club Level at AT&T Park. “The guys I work with learn from me and I learn from them, and they protect me too—no drunk fan better approach me on a Friday night!”
Brooks-Moon’s on-air career has spanned more than 20 years on local radio and television, and she’s long been a tireless community activist. “As a woman of color, I’ve had to work harder than everyone else. But if you know your shit, they’ll respect you,” she says. Her crowning achievement (so far) was becoming, with the 2002 World Series, the first woman in history to announce a national championship game; her scorecard is on display at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. “My advice to women working in a man’s world?” she asks. “Just go in there and kick ass.” —Chloé Harris
