BREAKING THE CODE: AS SEXUAL HARASSMENT CRISES ROCK TECH EMPLOYERS IN OTHER STATES, NORTH CAROLINA SHOWS LEADERSHIP THROUGH A HOSPITABLE, INCLUSIVE APPROACH.

• Author: Ranii, David
• Position: FIRST TAKE

Though fascinated from an early age by the HTML computer language, Maijorie Sample spent six years teaching writing, language arts and social studies in Franklin and Wake County schools before switching to a technology career. She now works at Fidelity Investments in Durham and credits the Girl Develop It program, a nonprofit offering women affordable tech classes, for helping her make the switch to work she finds enormously satisfying.

Although she has heard complaints about sexism from women who work in tech elsewhere, Sample hasn't experienced it at Fidelity, where she is a user researcher. "We have just as many women as we have men," she says. "I know it's not the norm."

North Carolina is No. 1 among U.S. states for the percentage of women employed in tech, although it ranks second when the District of Columbia is in the mix. Brooks Raiford, CEO of the N.C. Technology Association, has heard some of the state's large tech employers tout the data as part of their recruitment pitch to a field still dominated by men. The companies are often familiar faces to the pipeline of computer-science and information-technology graduates from universities such as Duke, N.C. State, UNC Chapel Hill and UNC Charlotte. Ditto for the state's community colleges.

North Carolina benefits from the in-migration of highly skilled workers, both women and men. A recent "brain drain" study by Bloomberg found that Raleigh and Durham ranked sixth and seventh, respectively, among the nation's cities for attracting STEM workers and those with advanced degrees. The Raleigh-Durham chapter of Girl Develop It, a national group, was formed in 2012 to address the paucity of women in tech. It has quickly grown to nearly 2,700 members.

Large tech employers such as MetLife and Cisco Systems have made special efforts to recruit women, says Joan Siefert Rose, a senior partner at management consulting firm Creo Inc. and former CEO of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development, a Durham-based nonprofit support group for entrepreneurs.

Kimberly Jenkins, co-founder and chair of Rewriting the Code, a Durham-based nonprofit that supports women in technology at the undergraduate level, says Triangle tech employers have deliberately adopted an Avis-versus-Hertz strategy when it comes to recruiting top talent. "We're not Silicon Valley ... so we try harder," Jenkins says. "One of the ways we try harder is to focus on talent that is often overlooked in Silicon Valley." Putting out the...