Confessions of a "Woman Owned Business" Owner.

• Author: Wagner, Pat
• Position: Letters - Letter to the Editor

Tama Starr's "Confessions of a 'Woman Owned Business' Owner" (July) made me smile. Decades ago I received a phone call from a representative of the long-departed Mountain Bell, the West's legacy from the AT&V breakup. He had found my name on a list of women in business and wanted to know if I would sign up for their special program for women-owned businesses.

When I explained that two humans, my husband and myself, owned and ran our little research and consulting firm, he told me he could send me work, guaranteed, if we would just incorporate our business with me as the owner and majority stockholder. I told him I was proud of our work and we would be happy to apply through the front door and compete with other businesses--even with (gasp) businesses owned and run by men. But he was in desperate need of WOBs to fill his quotas and said that if I insisted on being a regular business, he had no work for me.

The representative was very nice and eager to sign me up, and he seemed very puzzled when I turned him down; I was the only one of dozens of women who had said no. I won't judge people who sign up for similar programs, but I do take some pride in the fact that our business has never earned a penny in 29 years that was the result of any type of set-aside program.

Pat Wagner

Pattern Research

Denver, CO

Tama Starr accurately portrayed the absurdities of set-aside regulations. For several years I worked for a company that did contract work for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The work involved clean-up of Boston Harbor, and set-asides for VCBEs (women business enterprises) and...