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Profiles in Power – Austin Women
Jul 26 2009

betty-sue-flowers-aruniThis past Friday, I attended the annual Austin Business Journal’s Profiles of Women in Power event.  I attended on behalf of my co-worker and friend, Melissa Rabeaux who I have mentioned on this blog before.  She runs most of the green technology organizations in town including the Clean Energy Venture Summit, CleanTX.org, and Austin Solar Energy Entrepreneur’s Network.  She was nominated for the event in the non-profit category.  She wasn’t able to attend because she is recovering really well from successful surgery!

I sat at the IC2 table.  IC2 is the parent organization to the Austin Technology Incubator (check out our NEW website), where I work by day.  It was probably the best of the Profiles events I had attended and I’ve attended a handful throughout the years.  IC2 sponsors the event every year.  We sat right next to the keynote/award recipient table.

Last year Laura Kilcrease, founding director of ATI, was the 1st Lifetime Achievement award recipient.  This year it was Betty Sue Flowers (see fuzzy iPhone picture of me with Betty Sue taken by someone who doesn’t know how to take iPhone pics).

I met with Betty Sue several years ago when I was working on a book concept that I have yet to complete.  My friend Randi Shade introduced me to her.  She said she remembered me and that she had seen some of the articles that I’d published.  She also said the offer to write the Foreword of my eventual book was still open even after she moves to New York with her new love, former senator Bill Bradley, who was also at the lunch.  He’s a very tall man!  Now I just have to write that book…whatever it ends up being.

Karen Hughes (former Bush under secretary) was the keynote speaker! She was a fabulous, engaging speaker and even spoke about Bush’s made up words like ‘misunderestimated’ and how they often had to tell them they weren’t real words.  It’s stunning to me that he didn’t know they weren’t real words, but Betty Sue in her acceptance speech said she liked that word and that as a professor of English she thought it should be added to the Oxford dictionary.  She said it should mean something like people underestimate the extent to which they misunderstand something.  Betty Sue is so good with words!  Because it was a woman’s event, Karen spoke about jewelry she bought (and was wearing at the lunch) with Arabic on it when she visited Kuwait and how honored they were that she was wearing it.  They were impressed that a White House official would wear something with Arabic on it.  She said her husband told her it was just an excuse to buy jewelry! 🙂

The winners of the final awards were (ones in bold I know and/or are friends with):

Joyce Batcheller – Seton Family of Hospitals
Marilyn Bostick – Dee’s Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas/Seton Family of Hospitals
Linda Brucker, A Legacy of Giving
Tausha Carlson, Marahton Real Estate
Ewina Carrinton, Reznick Group, P.C.
Deborah Cole, Greater Texas Landscapes
Charlene Crump, Mary Lee Foundation
Nancy Ebe, Ebe & Associates, P.C.
Nora Foster, Campus Advantage
Candice Houston, ThinkStreet
Julie Jumonville, UpSpring Baby
Vickie Lee, VP HR of Tokyo Electron
Marny Lifshen, Marny Lifshen Consulting
Victoria Lynden, Alliance Abroad Group, AIDE, Kohana Coffee, Cissis market & Wine Bar
Sandra martin, founding CEO of Center for Child Protection
Caroline Murphy, St. David’s Healthcare/HCA, Mayor of BeeCave
Rebecca Powers, Impact Austin
Kerri Qunell, Capital Area Food Bank of Texas
Kendra Scott, Kendra Scott Design
Sue Snyder, Jackson Walker LLP
Denis Trauth, President of Texas of Texas State University – San Marcos
Jimmie Ann Vaughn, Jimmie Ann Vaughn Real Estate/Bastrop Downtown Business Alliance
Stuart Vick Smith, Maxwell Lock & Ritter, LLP
Lisa Williamson, UpSpring Baby
Ellen Wood, vcfo
Patricia Young Brown, Travis County Healthcare District

I saw several people I hadn’t seen in a while, and I enjoyed the event immensely.  Maybe one day I’ll be nominated for an award and win  something… 😎

Author: | Filed under: diversity, entrepreneurship | Tags: , , , | 4 Comments »

4 Comments on “Profiles in Power – Austin Women”

  1. 1 Kerri Qunell said at 8:01 PM on July 26th, 2009:

    Great post, and great to see you there Friday, Aruni! – Kerri Q.

  2. 2 Aruni said at 7:59 PM on July 27th, 2009:

    @Kerri – It was great to see you too and congratulations for winning your category!

  3. 3 Julie Tereshchuk said at 12:42 PM on July 28th, 2009:

    Great report, Aruni – and agreed about Betty Sue Flowers, she rocks! As
    does Kerri: congrats to KQ and all the other finalists. Julie T.

    (PS Aruni: keep an eye out for the August issue of austinwoman and the piece on Marisa…)

  4. 4 Aruni said at 5:22 PM on August 2nd, 2009:

    @Julie – Betty Sue Flowers is awesome. Thanks for the piece on Marisa. We just saw it!