Several years ago, my maternal grandparents filled out a journal of memories. It’s one of my favorite belongings. I remember the first time I looked at my grandmother’s response to “What did you want to be when you grew up?” Grandma’s answer was “a wife and mother.”

 The answer seemed a bit of a letdown. Having grown up post-1968, I have always believed women can be anything. I count among my women friends lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers, graphic designers, and more.
It can be easy to forget that women could not get a credit card, or sit on a jury in some states, until 1975. 

This past May, it was reported that a record number of women are running Fortune 500 companies. That “record number” is 37. In Nebraska, the 2012 Census reported that 51,936 firms are owned by women—62% of the number of firms owned by men in this state (83,696).

These are reasons why we at Omaha Publications celebrate women business leaders with this special edition of B2B.

One feature speaks to an issue women face daily—pay inequity. While there are jobs in which women make as much as men, many of those jobs have been traditionally held by women, such as teaching.

Another feature speaks to how business women have faced a unique situation this year—COVID-19 and shutting down/rearranging their business models. That article focuses on how two women-owned businesses handled the crisis in their own ways.

All our stories this round talk about women in leadership. Their success is why I enjoy producing this publication year-round, and why I especially enjoy this annual Women in
Business edition.

This letter was published in the December 2020/January 2021 issue of B2B.