Hall of Fame Honorees

Spring 2005 Issue

Enterprising Women inducted five women into its Hall of Fame at ceremonies earlier this year held in conjunction with the Enterprising Women of the Year Awards. Induction into the Hall of Fame is the publication’s highest honor, reserved for women who have accomplished a lifetime of achievements and have made a significant contribution to advancing the growth and development of women’s business enterprises.

2005 inductees include Gloria Bohan, Myra M. Hart, Maria de Lourdes Sobrino, Pat Parker, and Millie Robbins Leet. They join 2004 inductees Irene Natividad, Terry Neese, Barbara Kasoff, Harriet Michel, Nell Merlino, Connie Duckworth, and Adrienne Hall. 2003 inductees include Marilyn Carlson Nelson, Marsha Firestone, Susan Phillips Bari, Edie Fraser, Sharon Hadary, Hedy Ratner, and Carol Dougal.

Congratulations to our 2005 inductees on their remarkable achievements.

Gloria Spinelli Bohan

Gloria Bohan is well-known to most readers of Enterprising Women. A member of the magazine’s National Advisory Board, Gloria graced the cover of our Fall 2003 issue and was profiled for her achievements as the CEO and President of Omega World Travel. With over a billion in annual revenues, more than 200 offices worldwide, and 1,100 employees, Omega is the largest woman-owned travel agency in the United States and one the largest travel management companies worldwide.

Gloria founded Omega World Travel in Fredericksburg, VA as a one-woman travel agency in 1972. Over the past 33 years, she has steadily built the company by providing superior service to a wide array of corporations and government agencies. Omega’s employee base is 86 percent women and minorities.

In addition to the parent company, Omega’s wholly-owned affiliates include Cruise.com, TravTech, TourDeals.com, AirDeals.com, and Omega Meetings and Incentives.

Gloria was honored this past year as the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA) Travel Agent of the Year during the organization’s 74 th World Travel Congress in Hong Kong.

DIV2000.com named Omega World Travel the “Top Diversity Owned Business in the U.S.” for 2002. The organization recognizes the “Top 50” Fortune 500 companies each year for promoting multicultural business opportunities.

Gloria Bohan’s selection for the Enterprising Women Hall of Fame honors her outstanding success as an accomplished woman entrepreneur, her commitment to diversity in the workplace, and the mentoring and support she has provided as a role model for other women business owners.

Myra M. Hart

Myra Hart embodies the best that women can be for each other. She is an entrepreneur, a leading advocate for women’s entrepreneurship, and has brought for the first time in history the resources of the renowned Harvard Business School to bear on women’s business leadership.

Her interest in entrepreneurship comes from personal experience. In 1985, Myra joined Tom Stemberg as one of the four founding officers of Staples, the Office Superstore. She served as the company’s Vice President of Operations at its founding and, in 1987, took over as Group Vice President of Growth and Development with responsibility for the company’s geographic and business expansion. Today, she continues her entrepreneurial activities by working with several high-growth potential ventures as a board member, advisor and/or consultant.

As the Staples venture matured, providing its founders with the freedom to pursue other dreams, Myra decided to return to Harvard Business School (where she had received her MBA) to earn her doctorate. She is now on the Harvard Business School faculty, where she is an advocate for change on behalf of women entrepreneurs and women in business. She convinced the school’s leadership that courses and programs targeted at women business owners could be profitable as well as a vital addition to the curriculum.

Myra has developed two MBA courses, Starting New Ventures, and Women Building Business, a first for Harvard Business School. She also created two Executive Education programs, The Entrepreneur’s Tool Kit and Women Leading Business: An Executive Forum, short programs intended to update entrepreneurs and senior executives on the latest management research being developed at the school.

Myra is also a member of the Diana Group, a research team of five professors investigating entrepreneurs’ access to capital. The Diana Project’s first book, Clearing the Hurdles: Women Building High Growth Businesses was published in Spring 2004. She was the Chair of the Women’s Business Research Board of Directors from 2002 to2004 and serves on the advisory boards of Springboard New England and Emerging Women. A Trustee of Cornell University, she recently joined the Board of Directors of Office Depot. Myra Hart’s induction into the Enterprising Women Hall of Fame honors her accomplishments as an entrepreneur and the voice she has provided in support of women business owners.

Maria de Lourdes “Lulu” Sobrino

Maria Sobrino is Founder and CEO of Lulu’s Dessert Corporation. Established in 1982, Lulu’s Dessert is ranked among the fastest growing Hispanic businesses in the United States. From the initial production of 300 cups of gelatin a day, Lulu now produces over 130 million cups of dessert a year from her Vernon, CA manufacturing facility, distributing products in both domestic and international markets.

USA Today has called Lulu the “queen of ready to eat gelatin,” and The Wall Street Journal has applauded her marketing skills for “getting out and selling customers your dream.”

Born and raised in Mexico City, Lulu’s first business was in the tourism industry, later expanding to a travel agency that grew so rapidly that she decided to open an office in Los Angeles. Her entrepreneurial spirit was strong and she decided to explore other passions. The idea of selling ready to eat gelatin came after she began looking for the gelatin in U.S. grocery stores (it was a staple in her native Mexico). The concept was new to the United States and a novelty when she first introduced it to American grocers. Sales of her gelatin product, which was based on her mother’s recipe, took off.

Since then, Maria Sobrino has become a leader and role model for women entrepreneurs in the United States and her birthplace, Mexico. She was invited by President Bush and Mexican President Fox to share her expertise on a special commission, “Partnership for Prosperity,” to identify new ways to increase investment in remote parts of Mexico that generate a large percentage of immigration to the United States. She has been a member of the Import Export Bank of the United States Advisory Committee representing small businesses. She was also appointed Ambassador to the United States and Canada by the largest organization of Mexican women entrepreneurs in Mexico City, AMMJE, with the goal of expanding relationships between the two countries to increase economic opportunities.

Maria is the recipient of many awards, including the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s International Business Award, Avon and the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Women of Enterprise Award, and the Latin Business Association’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award. She is an active member of the Women Presidents’ Organization.

Maria Sobrino’s induction into the Enterprising Women Hall of Fame acknowledges her success as an outstanding entrepreneur and role model for aspiring women business owners, as well as the leading role she has played in fostering communication and cooperation among business owners in the United States and Mexico.

Patricia Parker

Pat Parker has built a business and a lifetime around the mission of helping Native Americans prosper. As the President of Native American Management Services, Pat and her sister Tonya, the company’s vice president, operate a multi-million dollar consulting and management firm that serves American Indian and Alaska Native sovereign nations.

The company provides public relations, outreach, and advertising services to Native American organizations and businesses, and welcomes mentor/protégé and teaming relationships with other Native American firms. Other services include conference management, training, and management services.

Pat is also Chair of the Native American Women’s Business Council, an Executive Board member of the National Indian Business Association, and an Associate Member of the National Foundation for Women Legislators. A member of the Choctaw Nation and an active participant in the Native American community, the full time staff at her Washington, D.C.-area office includes members of the Choctaw, Colorado Ute, Delaware, Navajo, San Juan Pueblo, and Sisseton tribes. Additional staff and consultants represent many other American Indian/Alaska Native tribes and villages.

Pat’s work with the Indian Health Service (IHS), part of the Department of Health and Human Services, laid the foundation for her consulting business, which she started in 1989. While at IHS, she managed multi-million dollar training and technical support programs, assisting Native American and Alaska Native tribal governments with logistical and management support for major conferences.

Native American Management Services was named one of the Top 50 Diversity Businesses in Virginia, and Pat has been the recipient of numerous awards to honor her contribution to the growth of women-owned enterprises, particularly Native American women-owned firms. Her selection for the Enterprising Women Hall of Fame is a fitting tribute to this outstanding entrepreneur and visionary.

Mildred Robbins Leet

The Global Summit of Women and Enterprising Women jointly inducted Millie Leet into the Enterprising Women Hall of Fame, honoring her as the first international inductee. Millie Leet is the Co-Founder and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Trickle Up Program, which was established in 1979 to help the lowest income people worldwide take their first steps out of poverty by providing conditional seed capital and business training essential to the launch of a micro-enterprise.

Trickle Up has started over 130,000 businesses in more than 120 countries. The organization is currently focusing its efforts in fourteen core countries, including Cambodia, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Mali, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Uganda, and the United States, as well as a special program initiative in Sri Lanka.

Millie Leet has spent a lifetime organizing initiatives aimed at promoting the advancement of women. From 1957-1964 she was the UN Representative for the National Council of Women of USA. She served as its president from 1964-68, emphasizing civil rights, international peacekeeping and organizing the first Women’s Conference on National Service. From 1968-1970, she was Vice President of the International Council of Women and became an active member on the Women’s Advisory Committee on Poverty in the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity. She organized an International Task Force of Women in 1978 to prepare for the 1979 UN Conference on Science and Technology for Development.

Millie has been the recipient of numerous awards. On behalf of WomenAid, Princess Diana presented her with the Women of the World Award in 1989, sharing honors with Mother Theresa and Wangari Maathai. With her husband, Glen Leet, she received the Presidential Points of Light Citation Award, the International Humanity Service Award from the American Red Cross, and the Award of Excellence from the U.S. Committee for UNIFEM. In 2003, the National Women’s Hall of Fame honored her with inclusion in its Book of Lives and Legacies, celebrating the contributions and accomplishments of outstanding American women.

InterAction, an umbrella organization of 168 U.S.-based non-profit international development organizations, honored Millie with the creation of the Mildred Robbins Leet Award, established in recognition of her enduring dedication and contribution to raising awareness on gender issues. She received the International Entrepreneurship Award in 1996 at the First Global Women’s Entrepreneur Trade Fair and Investment Forum in Africa, convened in Accra, Ghana.

Enterprising Women’s selection of Millie Leet for the Enterprising Women Hall of Fame honors her outstanding contributions in helping thousands of women entrepreneurs worldwide lift themselves out of poverty through the development of micro-enterprises. She has been an advocate for peace, an inspiration, and a role model to women throughout the world.