By John Eckberg
The Cincinnati Enquirer

IF YOU GO

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Anna Quindlen will be the keynote speaker at the YWCA's 24th Annual Salute to Career Women luncheon May 6. Quindlen joined Newsweek magazine as a contributing editor in October 1999. Her column appears every other week on the magazine's back page, alternating with George F. Will. The luncheon will be from noon to 1:30 p.m. in the third-floor ballroom of the Albert B. Sabin Cincinnati Convention Center. Emcee will be WKRC-TV news anchor Dayna Eubanks. Tickets cost $50. Corporate sponsor tables are also available. For more information, call the YWCA of Greater Cincinnati at 241-7090.

The YWCA's eight Career Women of Achievement span a wide spectrum of corporate and civic involvement:

From a senior aircraft engine executive to the president of a program that provides home visits to high-risk mothers and infants; from a senior vice president and chief financial officer of a national retailer to the president of a staffing firm.

Others are involved in education, corporate public relations and city management.

"These are all people who achieve at high levels," said Charlene Ventura, president and chief executive of the YWCA of Greater Cincinnati.

"It's a stellar group. We had over 100 nominations for the award and the judges went through a lot of agony to pick out eight."

The 2003 Career Women of Achievement are:

• Lorraine A. Bolsinger vice president/marketing, GE Aircraft Engines. Appointed the first woman vice president of GEAE in September 1999, Bolsinger manages the global marketing and sales team.Her scope of responsibility spans 86 countries in a 7,500-employee business. She also founded GE Women's Network designed to expand opportunities for professional women within GE.

• Roberta Campbell Bradford, president and chief executive at Drake Center Inc. Bradford, whose career in health care spans two decades, is responsible for a $70 million operating budget and 900 employees, overseeing Drake's long-term acute care hospital, skilled nursing facility, outpatient services and four subsidiaries.

• Cheryl N. Campbell, vice president corporate communications and public relations at Convergys Corp. She serves on the operating committee, overseeing global business operations of more than 44,000 employees in the United States, Canada, South America, Europe and Asia.

• Delores Hargrove-Young, president and chief operating officer for XLC Services. She is responsible for day-to-day operations of more than 100 XLC employees and offices in seven states. In 2002, the company received the Minority Supplier of the Year award from Procter & Gamble Co.

• Karen Meisel Hoguet, senior vice president and chief financial officer at Federated Department Stores, Inc. As the first woman CFO at Federated, she is responsible for strategic planning as well as all of the traditional financial functions including tax, accounting, finance/treasury, insurance and financial analysis.

• Valerie A. Lemmie, city manager of Cincinnati, is the city's chief administrative officer and is responsible for 17 departments, more than 6,000 full-time employees, and operating and capital budgets of $1 billion.

• Judith B. Van Ginkel, president of Every Child Succeeds and an associate professor at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Every Child Succeeds is a two-state, seven-county collaborative that provides health promotion and home visitation to first-time high-risk mothers and infants. The program is a national model that enables collaboration among 15 provider agencies.

• Cleaster Whitehurst-Mims, president and chief executive officer of the Marva Collins Preparatory School. In 2000 she received President Clinton's "Thousand Points of Light" award and in 1996 she received the Marian Wright Edelman Service Award.

The YWCA also presented Carrie M. Jones with the Mamie Earl Sells Scholarship. She plans to major in biology at either Howard University or the University of Cincinnati.

Ventura said two goals of the awards are clear: give young women role models and help employers look within their own organization.

"Companies need to see if they're promoting women at the levels that they should be," she said.

E-mail jeckberg@enquirer.com