A Woman's World

In Santa Cruz Sentinel online edition.

The Sentinel asked five prominent businesswomen how, or if, they balanced their work with their home lives, and what advice they might offer women in similar positions. Here are highlights from the article:

• And being in Santa Cruz County, where entrepreneurship is key to success in the area’s small business environment and community involvement is highly valued, can make the struggle for work-life balance even more intense.

• "People who work for BIG companies have to travel a lot and work long hours, and that’s a different pressure ... But a lot of people in Santa Cruz are running their own businesses, which is 24-7 and demands a lot of creativity," said Peggy Dolgenos of Cruzio, who started the Internet service provider with her husband 16 years ago.

• "Too many women today, not only in business but in various endeavors, are struggling to live up to an ideal that’s not realistic and probably not that rewarding and certainly unhealthy," said Kauffman.

• ... She said she’s made certain choices, such as starting her own company rather than working in the corporate world, to give her greater flexibility, but still says she feels overextended.

• Pamela Davis, CEO of Nonprofits Insurance Alliance Group, who is not married and does not have children, has done a kind of "sequencing" — "playing," in her words, for a period of years, then focusing intensely on her business for the next period, with the idea that life is a collection of these sequential vignettes, each with its rewards and challenges.

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A Woman's World