MARGIE LEWIS Nuclear entrepreneur
M
argie Lewis, NE 79, withdrew $10,000 from her savings account in 1993 and launched Parallax, an engineering and environmental management company, out of her home. Lewis is president and chief executive officer of the Germantown, Md., company that she started in partnership with Dolan P. Falconer Jr., NE 78, MS NE 79. The company's focus is inspecting nuclear power plants, putting safety procedures in place and cleaning up
nuclear and hazardous waste. Because of the heightened threat to national security since 9/11, Lewis says her company has doubled in size to 200 employees. "We do a lot of work in the national security sector," Lewis says. Before starting her company, Lewis worked in the nuclear industry 14 years, first as a safety adviser at nuclear power plants, then as an inspector with the Nuclear Regulatory Agency in Washington, D.C. Falconer was also an inspector with the agency.
DEBORAH NASH WILLINGHAM
D
eborah Nash Willingham, lSyE 78, maintains a strong long-distance connection to Georgia Tech. Willingham has a high-ranking job — senior vice president for human resources — with high-tech giant Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, Wash. But she makes time for Georgia Tech. She has served on the Georgia Tech Advisory and Foundation boards, the Alumni Advisory Board for Industrial and Systems Engineering and as a commencement speaker. She was named to the College of Engineering Council of Outstanding Young Engineering Alumni in 1996. Fortune magazine has listed her among the country's most powerful businesswomen. "My education at Tech opened many career doors for me and is the foundation for my business success. I feel a responsibility to give something back," Willingham says. Harold Nash, EE 52, encouraged his daughter as well as his sons — H. Ronald, IE 70, and Michael, IE 74 — to attend Tech. Willingham says her father wanted her to become an engineer so she could support herself. "And I could afford the tuition by working part time and getting some scholarships. I thought it would be a great education for the price — and it was." A Tech education also proved valuable in teaching her how to thrive in a male-dominated world. "Female students were often singled out in class to answer questions since there were so few of us. There
"1 thought I could provide a better service to customers than larger companies that were more concerned with just the bottom line," Lewis says. "We do engineering feasibility studies and can solve engineering problems, particularly those dealing with environmental remediation," she says. "We've removed radioactive lead brick from facilities. We do a lot of inspections of nuclear engineering facilities, both for the government and for the nuclear power industry." Lewis says she wasn't too worried when she made the $10,000 investment to start her company. Her nuclear engineering degree is very marketable. "I thought, heck, if it doesn't work out, I can always get a real job." — John Dunn
were some professors who claimed that a woman couldn't make a grade higher than a C in their classes. We learned to avoid those professors. We couldn't take PE courses since there was no gym open to women when I was there. But, for the most part, we were treated equitably," Willingham says. She says working women today still face a "glass ceiling inhibiting their movement into the highest executive ranks at most companies. And many women — and men — struggle to balance their family responsibilities with their work responsibilities." Willingham's own struggle as a divorced mother of two teen-age sons made The Seattle Times in 1998 when she was summoned to Bill Gates' compound for a meeting at the same time she was supposed to be at a school program. In order to meet her obligations to Gates and to her son, Willingham took a helicopter from the Microsoft meeting to the school then back to Gates' powwow. The article said Willingham "is being cited as a symbol of a new Microsoft: an older, wiser company where relationships, whether with family or customers, are a key to the company's ongoing success. What's more, not only does she represent a company that has matured, she's also at the vortex of one of its most important enterprises for the future." Willingham says Tech helped prepare her for the high-stress working world. "Georgia Tech was a challenging academic environment, where 1 had to think clearly and quickly — even when I was tired from working 20-hour weeks and carrying a full load. This ability to think well under less than perfect circumstances has served me well during my working career." — Kimberly Link-Wills
Fall 2002 • GEORGIA TECH 53