Small Business Today Magazine MAY 2014 CUSTOMIZED REAL STATE SERVICES | Page 9

classes. Once she had her license she went
to work in the accounting department for
PM Realty Group (PMRG). At that time,
all of their property managers were men.
Her knowledge of accounting was slim but
she knew once she got in she could eventually work her way into the position she
really wanted. All the while she mastered
accounting by asking questions, reading
books, and teaching herself.

Eleven months later, Connie got a call
from a property manager at one of the
buildings managed by PMRG asking her if
she would take a secretarial position at his
building. Connie rightly saw it as a step in
the right direction even though she had
to fight company policy against transfers. It
was during the big recession in the 1980s
and job security was at a premium. She
finally got her transfer after threatening to
quit and, once again, she was on her way
up.

Within a relatively short period of
time, Connie became the first female to
be promoted to property manager with
PM Realty Group. In a climate roiling with
anti-discrimination class action lawsuits,
Connie always felt she had been selected
partly because she was the right woman in
the right place at the right time. Because of
that, she worked twice as hard as anyone
else so they would never have reason to
think they had made the wrong decision.

Connie laughs now when recalling her
first few meetings as a property manager;
“I was always the only woman in the room
with 20 men, and being a woman raised in
the South, I waited patiently for everyone
to stop talking long enough for me to jump
into the conversation. As you can imagine,
that didn’t work out very well. After three
meetings without finding an opportunity
to say ONE WORD, I got so frustrated
I just stood up! Everyone stopped talking
then and just stared at me.The vice
president asked, ‘What’s
wrong?’ I

just said, ‘I figured that was the only way I
would ever get your attention and