Start up a conversation with a woman anywhere in Marin County — the grocery store, the dog park, the dentist’s office — and you are likely to be inspired. Women in the county are, as a whole, jaw-dropping in their accomplishments, whether it is in the realm of science, finance, education, medicine, athletics, environmental causes or political activism… you name it. And, while society is far from free of sexism, we do live in an era when young girls see the previous generations’ successes and are more likely to believe they can do anything — choose any career, hold any position.
The foundation for the outlook afforded young women today was built by the previous generations of female trailblazers. In Marin, 19th and 20th century women like political activist Elizabeth Thacher Kent, environmentalist Caroline Sealy Livermore and first Marin County female Supervisor Vera Schultz were determined and uncompromising as they established themselves as leaders and made lasting changes to society. Today we have, living in our midst, Marin County women who, by dint of their convictions, acuity and endurance, have succeeded in traditionally male fields, paving the way for new generations of female changemakers. Below we profile four of these local women, our modern day trailblazers.
Pierrette Jeanmonod
In August of 1960, the Daily Independent Journal, a local predecessor to the Marin IJ, announced that Ms. Pierrette Jeanmonod, the Northern California Sales Manager of the Iberia Airlines of Spain, would speak at the dinner meeting of the Novato Business and Professional Women. “Usually only men are employed at such an advisory level for an airline company,” said W. C. Hassler of the Wide World Travel Agency in the article. Indeed, photos of Iberia Airlines meetings that include Jeanmonod, who is now 92 and lives in Mill Valley, show a smiling professional female surrounded by rows of male colleagues.
Jeanmonod says she developed confidence growing up in Lausanne, Switzerland, learning several languages and traveling the world. She worked as an assistant to the District Sales Manager for Air France in Canada, and when he was sick, took over the job. That experience prepared her for her future position: District Sales Manager for Iberia Airlines in Northern California.
“I was just the best person for the job,” says Pierrette reflecting on that time period and the Iberia Airlines upper management meetings in which she was most definitely the only woman. “When you know what you are doing it makes a big difference. I had no lack of confidence that I could do the job well, so no one ever questioned me.” In fact, she adds, columnist Herb Caen wrote about her, but not because she was the only woman at the upper management level; he wrote about the fact that her male colleagues threw her a baby shower when she was going on maternity leave.
Jaqueline Annette Sue
Corte Madera resident Jaqueline Sue, who is now 88, arrived in the Bay Area from Michigan by bus in 1956. “I was 21 years old with $81 in my pocket and I didn’t know anyone,” she says. Through a friend she made at church, she found an entry level job at the post office in San Francisco in 1962. “I started out on the ground floor as a clerk, as all women had to at that time. We were not even allowed to be mail carriers,” says Sue. “In fact, until the early 1970s there was really no higher level female presence anywhere in the U.S. Postal Service.”
According to Sue it was in the mid-1960s that the U.S. Postal Service began to recognize Equal Opportunity programs for women and minorities. But women continued to carry an undue burden of proof as they strived to earn management positions. “At that time they made women go through all the hoops, so we had to learn all the positions, from human resources to finance, to get promoted. They tried to keep us from higher positions by saying we didn’t have some qualification or experience,” she says. When Sue was promoted to a supervisor position in the ’60s, she was one of the few women nationwide to hold a management position in the Postal Service.
In the coming decades Sue continued to rise through the ranks, becoming the assistant to the Western Region Postmaster General and later running the major distribution center in Richmond. She and her husband, who was also a postal employee, had moved to Corte Madera in 1967, and her dream was to become the Postmaster General of the Corte Madera Post Office. She achieved this goal, but not until she had already served as the acting Postmaster General in Fairfield, Alamo, San Lorenzo and Berkeley. “I went through all the hoops and then, in 1978 or ’79, I finally landed at the Corte Madera Post Office and became the first female Postmaster General of a large Post Office in Marin County.”
Sue says she found strength by connecting with her female colleagues who were experiencing the same discrimination. “You always recognized the discrimination, but we were determined. Socially, economically, personally, we were determined,” says Sue, who was later recruited to Washington D.C. by the Postmaster General, entered the Postal Executive Services and became a Director of Marketing. She retired from the Postal Service in 1992 after 30 years. “I got ahead because I stood my ground. I knew I had the talent and the mental acuity,” says Sue. “My favorite word is ‘coping.’ We women had patience and we waited and we coped because we knew somehow our time would come.”
Joan Linn Bekins
In 1953, at age 23, Joan Linn Bekins went to Hawaii for a marketing and advertising job, promoting island-grown, grass-fed beef. There, an opportunity was waiting for her. “I had a boss who believed in me,” she says. “It had always been easy for me to promote ideas and network — I had ideas and I put them in motion, and he gave me free reign. It was an adrenaline rush.” In Hawaii, Bekins met the moment, learned all aspects of advertising and PR, and began writing a newspaper column. She credits this early experience for her robust career as a PR professional on the mainland, working for, among others, the State of California Beef Council and the American Red Cross.
In her thirties Bekins married, moved to Marin and had two children. That was when she met naturalist and environmental educator Elizabeth Terwilliger, who led local “Mommy and Me” hikes in Marin. Bekins recognized the importance of Terwilliger’s environmental education and turned her energy and expertise toward promoting Terwilliger’s lessons. In the coming decades, Bekins became, in her words, “the woman behind the woman” as she promoted the work of “Mrs. T.” Bekins created content and generated financial support for Terwilliger, publishing the Terwilliger Nature Guides to help Terwilliger lead school field trips, launching the non-profit Elizabeth Terwilliger Nature Education Foundation, and, in 1984, establishing the Terwilliger Guild for fundraising and other forms of support. “I’ve loved every minute of my work,” says Bekins, who, for four decades, devoted herself to environmental education and conservation, serving as volunteer publicist, film director, grant writer and fundraiser. Today, Bekins continues to share her love of nature through a third career as a macro photographer.
Andrea Schultz
When Andrea Schultz’s daughter entered kindergarten, Schultz decided it was time to go to work, so she joined the family business. In the late 1940s her grandfather, Niels Schultz Sr., had purchased a large swath of land, naming and developing the town of Greenbrae. Niels Schultz Sr. and his son Niels Schultz Jr. ran the family commercial development and management company which, in 1952, opened the Bon Air Center. In 1990, at age 38, Schultz joined her father at the family company. She was “phased in” slowly, she says, and by 2006, she became President and CEO of Greenbrae Management and Bon Air Center.
The commercial development and management industry is, in Schultz’s words, “definitely a man’s world,” so she has tried to keep her head down and stay focused on the work. “You learn as you go,” says Schultz who is also director of her family’s foundation and has been a leader on the MarinHealth Board of Directors since 2010. “When I started under my father I learned by observation, sitting in on meetings, quiet. Eventually I began to speak more. I figured it out. I saw what I didn’t know, and focused on that.”
Schultz credits the enormous responsibility of being a parent with preparing her for her leadership role in the company. Due to her humble nature and “under the radar” sensibility, she says she didn’t mind the responsibility of taking over the company, but she was hesitant about the high-profile title. “I thought, well, I guess there’s no way around it,” she says. “I’ve focused on being a team builder. I love what I do, and I have always strived to meet expectations and do what is necessary for the business and to serve our community.”
Kirsten Jones Neff is a journalist who writes about all things North Bay, with special attention to the environment and the region’s farmers, winemakers and food artisans. She also works and teaches in school gardens. Kirsten’s poetry collection, When The House Is Quiet, was nominated for the Northern California Book Award, and three of her poems received a Pushcart nomination. She lives in Novato with her husband and three children and tries to spend as much time as possible on our local mountains, beaches and waterways. For more on her work visit KirstenJonesNeff.Com.
