 Hello, my name is Donna Bailey, and I'm here to present a number of responses and comments to questions relating to women's issues in the Veterans Health Administration. Before I do that, however, let me say that over 56 percent of VA employees are women. Currently, only 7 percent of these women are in key senior executive positions. I think it's safe to say that women still face some obstacles in achieving top-level executive positions. We went around the country and asked VHA staff to address this issue and received a variety of responses. We asked, is there a glass ceiling, and if so, what steps could be taken to break the barrier? And yes, there is a glass ceiling in VA, although, again, we may not want to talk about it, but VA, even less in the corporate world, cannot afford to have a glass ceiling. We simply have got to recognize marriage where it is and take advantage of it. Historically, the VHA has made an attempt to recruit the very best. It has established educational training programs as well as assessment centers to assess individuals with high potential. Let's listen to comments about these programs. And in 1978, as a panelist addressing the Civil Service Reform Act, I actually made a recommendation which ultimately was adopted by VHA where we would use the assessment center process, and that gave everybody an opportunity to compete for associate director training programs and ultimately become directors in the VA system. The turning point in my career was actually entering the graduate education program. It used to be called GEP. I was 27 years old and the VA offered me a great opportunity. The VA set a goal for me to become a director long-range. With that goal and opportunity, I developed a strong sense of loyalty to this agency which made me buy into staying for the number of years that I've stayed. And some of us have personal reasons for supporting women. You see, I'm a high school dropout. I finished half the 10th grade. I was 16. I rested my birth certificate like I was 17 and joined the Marines. One lady's school teacher, the only person who took a personal interest in me, she finally got me into taking the GED test and I went on to NC State to get a degree in mechanical engineering and to Duke University to get a master in hospital administration. The only way I can ever pay this lady back is to helping young people, especially females and minorities, on the way up and I've been very fortunate. I've been able to help a lot of them. The only way they can ever pay me back is to do likewise. We're now in the 90s. Perhaps the biggest change taking place is the attitudes of male staff members toward women on the move and those who have already made it. Not too long ago, it was hard to find men willing to talk like this. Well, as a matter of fact, I'm one of the few VA managers fortunate enough to work for the female CEO. And I can tell you, it is a rewarding experience and one that many of you will have in the future. For example, when people like my daughters reach leadership positions and one of them is a naval aviator on the top of her flight class and the other a medical student at Stanford, when people like that become leaders, we will all have to get used to the idea that leadership is a matter of ability, not of gender. I think there's no doubt that women have the capabilities to be top executives in any organization. The issue isn't gender. The issue should be who can do the job the best. Well, I think it doesn't matter if my associate director is a woman or a man. I think that's the most critical factor. You've got to be objective about the skills of the person in the position that you're working with. I mean, I've been working with women in virtually all of the positions I've had in the VA. I had Marjorie Quant as a boss for many years. And regardless of what you think about Marjorie Quant, believe me, I knew she was my boss. If we can agree that women do indeed belong in senior executive level positions within VHA, how do we get them there? We received a variety of opinions on this question, and they're all worth listening to. Well, first of all, I think any executive should be a mentor. I think you need to find out how you can help people achieve their personal goals and their professional goals, make sure they're involved in activities that enhance their skills and abilities, and to guide them in the direction of applying for programs that may achieve those goals. You must have a comprehensive and realistic career plan. That's critical. Women in minority must be dedicated and committed to move ahead, and you got to have a plan to do that. After all, your plan is a roadmap to your success. We take a job, we do a good job at it, we get promoted, we gain credibility, but there's not a lot of planning. Men plan out their careers. They look out and they say, I want to be a director in five years. They take steps to make sure that they go through each of the check marks. And our organization requires a great deal of checks, and if you don't jump the hoops, then you sometimes don't get the credibility of having gone through the career ladders per se. So I think we as women need to learn from men in planning out what we want to do when we take a job, accept it, but always ask the question, what's next? I always feel that you lead by example, and I certainly have tried to set an example in hiring and promoting women and minorities to key roles in the Veterans Administration. Primarily, I think hard work and doing good work that helps management do its job is the key. We concentrate too much on the higher levels in the organization, and we need to start doing this at a lower level so we can develop these career leaders throughout their career. I have always had the expectations of those people that served under me, as well as myself, to identify those people with the skills and the intelligence and the demonstrated ability to meet the challenging management decisions that we must face every day in the Veterans Administration. So in a nutshell, I would say no and grow. A part of knowing is informal learning as well as formal learning, choosing role models and mentors. When that is done and when one continues to grow, then I would suggest that women should challenge the system in order that it will be more responsive to them. The women who obviously have talents and expertise that we could use are afraid to try to move up the ladder. The organization is waiting for these individuals to self-nominate themselves, and we end up at a stalemate. I'm convinced that the most important route to show women that leadership and management is available to them is to provide them with executive medicine or leadership VA, which gives them the opportunity to go back to school and take courses in management. Women have studied hard, they've prepared well, and in addition, they often have traits which make them very desirable in the modern world, traits such as sensitivity and compassion. We just heard a number of excellent suggestions and remarks. However, the fact remains that there are still very few women in executive positions. Are there stumbling blocks? I do feel I've experienced some obstacles along the way, in particular, for myself it's been in the area of mobility. In advancement for the VA, it's essential that you move two different levels of medical centers. I find that as a result, I've had to make some decisions on my personal life, which I find to be both stressful and also expensive. There is an increasing trend for dual career families in today's workforce, and I think you're seeing that trend in the VA. One of the issues that we deal with is the demand on our time since we both work, but probably the bigger issue that we have dealt with and will continue to deal with is mobility. As you move up in VA, there is a mobility requirement, but I have to say this is not just an issue for women, this is an issue for men also. I hear my colleagues, my male friends, repeatedly stating that they won't apply for a training program or they won't make a move for a promotion because it will ruin their wives' careers or it's very disruptive to their families. And I think the VA, if they're going to reach out to the real stars in the system, they need to look at the mobility issue. An example of that is when Colleen did her training in Richmond recently. We were separated for almost a year. Separation is almost inevitable when you have mobility as an issue. You either have one person doing a lot of commuting or both people commuting when you choose a neutral site to commute from. So it's a hardship, A, on the commuters and B, because there is a family separation. Now, we're both from Navy families. We're used to separation. We grew up as products of successful marriages that were built around long periods of separation. So it's easier for us than it is for some people. But that is a big issue, and that was a tough time even for people who were prepared for it. I think that the organization should be more flexible. Maybe in five years or 10 years down the road, mobility wouldn't be a question for me. But that's not the question that the organization asks. They say, are you mobile? And if the answer is no, then the doors are closed. I think a critical aspect of this transition is that we don't delay the transition by stereotyping males into certain roles, that we don't have an unconscious bias towards male in certain roles because we've always only seen males as deans, or only always seen males as chairman. So I think it's important that we recognize the role of women, the potential for women in these roles. And I think it's important we recognize at an early stage in their careers so that women with administrative leadership capabilities can showcase those and have opportunities to develop those early on. So at this point in time that we need to get women actively involved in being on committees and running committees and being section chiefs and service chiefs because it's from that pool that women will rise to the highest ranks in the organization. We've heard a comment on stereotyping. And yes, we do sometimes do it unconsciously. Equality is another sensitive issue for women. And guess what? Women executives can't really afford to be less than outstanding in their performance. Average performance can really be perceived as being poor performance and be used to explain why women should not be in executive positions. So in this sense, I think that there's still some striving for full equality for women in VHA. I think for right now, what was said about Ginger Rogers is still true for VHA women executives. She did everything Fred did, only backwards and in heels. Traditionally, men play a very dominant role in medicine. Statistically, though, 50% of applicants in medical school are women. Still, we find ourselves with very few women in executive medicine positions, such as chairpersons, deans, or chiefs of staff. Let's hear what physicians have to say about that. Clearly the VA will need more women physicians as well as female physicians in the role of chief of staff as we continue to develop our position in national health care and develop appropriate treatment programs for the increasing number of female veterans. For me as a physician, I've always said that I really had three jobs. Besides the volunteer work I wanted to do, I was a wife and a mother and those are for many people full-time jobs and sometimes I feel like they were more than full-time jobs. At the same time, I had been a physician and wanted to continue to be. One of the things I don't think the men had to contend with when I applied to medical school, every single interviewer who interviewed me asked me if I thought it was fair that I was taking up a place in medical school that a man could occupy and that that man would have a better chance of practicing medicine than I did. And of course, I said, well, sure, I think it's fair. I think I'm going to be a good doctor and I think I have every right to be here. And I think I'm going to practice just as well and just as hard as any of my male colleagues. And I hope I have. So if one of your colleagues says something which is an obviously a biased remark, call them on it. You don't have to do it in a public forum, but you can call them later and say, you know, that remark kind of bothered me because it didn't seem to be fair and seemed to be biased against women based on their sex and not on an individual attribute. Any time I hear that, I get, I'm worried about it and it bothers me and I needed to call and share that with you. And I think that if we all stand up and do that and if we provide a good role model that we never let that enter into our decision making or our behavior, that we will help counteract any prejudice which exists. We asked a senior executive to summarize her experiences and feelings as a female executive. And this was her response. Your question reminds me of a time, I guess now a year and a half ago when Jeannie Norman and I got together to have lunch and to talk about the need for a program in the VA that would focus on women in the organization. As you might expect, we talked about our own successes and the fun we had and in many ways the richness of the VA as a career. But there was a sort of pause in the conversation and I said to her that there'd also been some very lonely times and recounted the stories in the early days of my joining the VA when there were really only one or two executive women in central office where I was then and after several hints I realized that the women in the organization really didn't even go to lunch together at that time. I had the same kind of an experience when I was about to go to the assessment center and realized that my boss didn't want to talk to me about it because he really didn't even see it as a serious endeavor on my part. The good news is that I think this has really changed in recent years. I've seen many, many women in the organization reaching out to one another to help and to mentor and I'm very encouraged by that. I've always been very impressed by the strong bonds between the men in the organization and not always sure that the women also had a time to feel a part of that. I'm encouraged and hope that we can make the women in the organization feel a part of this marvelous VA family too. To paraphrase Malcolm, the great-granddaddy of VHA, VA cannot afford to have a glass ceiling. We simply must recognize merit where it is and take advantage of it. Fortunately, glass can easily be broken. All it takes is a little effort from all of us. Before we close, I'd like to leave you with this final message. I guess I'd like for our directors and Chiefs of Staff to go back home and really look at their environment. Is there something they can do differently? Don't go back and say, none of that applied to me. My hospital is perfect. Women out there are seeking information about how to change and it's an opportunity for directors and Chiefs of Staff to help make those changes possible. Timing couldn't be better for women. And to be a part of it, a director and Chief of Staff to feel, it's got to be exciting.