WOMEN OF FIRE
Susan Ogrodnik-Smith
Susan Ogrodnik-Smith feels right at home, whether she’s finding a way to insure a submarine, volunteering with the Boys & Girls Clubs or the Junior League of Boston or mentoring up-and-coming colleagues.
Gail Roberts
Combine enthusiasm, professionalism and commitment and you have a formula for success. Just ask Gail Roberts, vice president of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Cambridge; she has been using this recipe for the last 30 years.
Tamara Small
Tamara Small may have a diminutive surname, but her reputation in Massachusetts’ State House and commercial real estate industry is anything but. When you talk to her colleagues, the word that gets dropped the most is probably “respect.”
Sarah Valentini
If there’s one thing it takes to make it in the mortgage business, it’s hustle – and Sarah Valentini, who grew up working nights and weekends at her family’s small restaurant, certainly acquired that in spades.
Tami Bonnell
Tami Bonnell sold her first house when she was 13. And she hasn’t stopped since.
Hillary Burr
Hillary Burr doesn’t describe herself as a runner, but she’s currently training for her fourth half-marathon.
Janelle Chan
As an undergraduate at the University of California at Berkeley, Janelle Chan acquired the habit of asking questions. Once she received her degree in ethnic studies, her inquisitiveness never waned, a practice to which she attributes her steady ascent up the career ladder.
Catherine Daume
Cappy Daume openly admits that she doesn’t have the best work-life balance.
Barbara Elia
When Barbara Elia began her career, no one was particularly thrilled about working in commercial real estate – and neither was she.
Susan Gittelman
After 23 years in nonprofit and community development, Susan Gittelman says she still enjoys seeing the fruits of her labor – not only in the buildings she helps create, but also in people’s lives.
Christina Hill
Christina Hill thought she could never do her mother’s job (her mother is Edie Hill, another of our Women Of FIRE honorees). It wasn’t until her daughter was born in 1992 that she joined E.A. Hill & Co., the firm her mother had founded, as a sales associate, starting out part-time and eventually becoming full time.
Edie Hill
In another age, Edie Hill might have been the alchemist who found the secret formula for spinning lead into gold.
Svetlana Javakhyan
As a young, gifted musician in her home country of Armenia, Svetlana Javakhyan envisioned a career that would take her to concert stages around the world where audiences would enjoy her exquisite viola playing. While that dream came partially true, circumstances led her in another direction, and she now occupies the spotlight on a different stage as vice president of sales at Wolfson Cutler Real Estate.
Marty Jones
When Marty Jones was named president and CEO of MassDevelopment last year, she became the first female head of the state’s leading finance and development agency.
Jae Junkunc
Jae Junkunc is a bit of a travel junkie. And it might have something to do with the fact that over the course of her life, she has lived in eight different states, three different countries and Washington, D.C.
Jane Lundquist
In her 26-year banking career, Jane Lundquist has worked for only two banks, CambridgePort Bank and, for the past eight years, Rockland Trust, where she serves as director of retail delivery, business banking and home equity lending. It would be an understatement to say Lundquist loves her career.
Betsy Magnuson
Insurance is what Betsy Magnuson knows, and she knows it well. She has been with Herbert H. Landy Insurance Agency, started by her father in 1949, for 27 years, and has been president since 2001.
Cindy Merkle
Cindy Merkle has a knack for process. She came up through the ranks during the course of her banking career, and has a grasp of how things are supposed to work, as well as the way they actually work.
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