Glass Ceiling Breakers

Glass Ceiling Breakers

Gulf Coast women

business leaders make

a showing on a list of Florida's top executives.

LEADERSHIP by Mark Gordon | Managing Editor

When Jennifer Clark was taking night classes for her MBA at the University of Tampa in the mid 1980s, she discovered one major problem during the day: She was bored.

So in 1986 Clark bought a minority interest in a small, obscure woodworking factory in Pinellas Park. The company, Mill-Rite Woodworking, Inc. had about $500,000 in orders and just a handful of employees.

The move not only cured Clark of her boredom, it led to a career transformation. Clark still runs the company today, a business that has since grown to $9.5 million in annual orders and 65 employees.

The company, which had $8.3 million in 2006 revenues, provides wood paneling and custom-made wood fabrications for commercial construction projects. Its client base is mostly in Florida, with recent projects including work on the new Manatee County Courthouse and upgrades to the Naples Bay Marina and Tampa General Hospital.

Clark's leadership in building Rite-Mill has also made her a fixture on a prominent list ranking the top women business executives in Florida. Now in its third year, the survey, commissioned by the Center for Leadership at Florida International University and the Commonwealth Institute of South Florida, ranks women business executives in a variety of categories, from leadership to company revenues. The 2008 rankings were published in June.

"There are very few women who do what I do," says Clark. "Not many women run a specialized construction company like this."

Clark is one of four Gulf Coast-based executives to make the list all three years, joining Rhea Law, chairwoman and chief executive of Fowler White Boggs Banker, a Tampa-based law firm; Judy Mitchell, president of Clearwater-based Peter R. Brown Construction; and Susan Stackhouse, CEO of Stellar Partners, Inc., a Tampa-based airport retailer.

Overall, there are 10 executives of Gulf Coast-based companies on the list. The survey lists women who are either owners or presidents/chief executive officers of for-profit companies, with rankings based on a combination of revenues and answers to a pair of questionnaires. One questionnaire focused on leadership characteristics, such as how much efficacy, hope, optimism and resiliency an executive has. The order of the rankings is based on the company's 2006 revenues.

The 10 executives on the list run a diverse group of businesses, from the aptly named Law, who runs one of the largest law firms in the state to Stackhouse, who runs one of the largest airport retail consulting businesses in the country.

Stackhouse's company, Stellar Partners, has created a niche for itself running retail stores in more than a dozen airports nationwide, with clients including such airport staples as News & Gifts and various duty free shops.

Stellar Partners had annual revenues of less than $1 million when Stackhouse joined it as a mid-level manager in the mid 1980s.

She bought the firm in the 1990s and it has grown its sales and airport reach just about every year since. It reported revenues of $27 million in 2006.

Despite the growth, Stackhouse says she's still somewhat surprised when she and the company are included on any 'best of' list, especially one that includes financial rankings. "It helps validate what I've been doing all these years," says Stackhouse. "This is some pretty elite company."

Stackhouse realizes it will be a significant challenge to make the list in 2009, as a key company metric is sales per passengers who pass through airports. With the economy in its current slump, those numbers are sure to be down over the next 12 months. Stackhouse hopes the fact that company survived the post 9/11-travel slowdown will be a good teaching tool for the company to use in navigating the current slump.

Being the Gulf Coast, of course, the construction industry is represented on the list - Mitchell, of Peter R. Brown Construction, is the number two executive on the list. Peter R. Brown Construction reported $215 million in 2006 revenues.

Entrepreneurs are also well represented on the rankings. Two of the more accomplished women business leaders in Greater Sarasota, for instance, are on the list. One is Alex Miller, who led a successful corporate turnaround at Mercedes Medical, Inc. to where the company is now a $20 million-plus medical supply company after being on the brink of collapsing five years ago and another is Eileen Rosenzweig, who runs one of the largest, and most profitable, Sir Speedy franchises in the country. Rosenzweig made the list in 2006, too.

One aspect missing from the 2008 list are any representatives from the Fort Myers/Naples business community. Heather Henning, president of the Henning Group, a $38 million Naples-based homebuilding and construction firm, made the list in 2006 and 2007.

But Henning doesn't necessarily attribute the 2008 omission to the fact that her company is struggling to survive the real estate collapse, although revenues are indeed down. Instead, Henning says she was busy networking for future projects and contacts and she forgot to submit all the paperwork and questionnaires for the survey.

AT A GLANCE

Top Women Business Leaders of the Gulf Coast

Rank Leader Title Company Location Revenues Employees

2 Judy Mitchell President Peter R. Brown Construction Clearwater $215 million 150

5 Rhea Law CEO/Board Chairwoman Fowler White Boggs Banker P.A. Tampa $89 million 545

7 Joyce Anderson CEO Florida Orthopedic Institute Tampa $62 million 500

15 Susan Stackhouse CEO Stellar Partners, Inc. Tampa $27 million 185

21 Alex Miller CEO Mercedes Medical, Inc. Sarasota $18 million 35

26 Nancy Crews CEO Custom Manufacturing & Engineering Inc. St. Petersburg $14.6 million 120

31 Jennifer Clark President Mill-Rite Woodworking Inc. Pinellas Park $8.3 million 65

36 Linda Hinson President H&H Unlimited Brandon $6 million 4

44 Lisa Roher President Sterling Research Group St. Petersburg $4.6 million 40

48 Eileen Rosenzweig President Sir Speedy Sarasota $3.5 million 17

Source: Center for Leadership at Florida International University and the Commonwealth Institute of South Florida.

REVIEW SUMMARY

Trend: An annual survey ranking women business leaders in Florida, commissioned by the Center for Leadership at Florida International University and the Commonwealth Institute of South Florida.

Key. Ten of the top 50 women business executives in Florida run Gulf Coast-based companies.