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By Jessica Brady, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, June 16, 2006

Suzanne Sullivan, a transportation lobbyist at McCann Capitol Advocates, has been working the rooms, collecting business cards, and building networks of all kinds for two decades. She circles in groups that are formal and informal, industry-based and philanthropic.

But of all the contacts Sullivan has made in her 20 years in Washington, it is the women she has met through Women in Government Relations that remain her best-kept connections. The group of over 600 women, according to WGR's Web site, "provides professional and educational programs and networking opportunities." Sullivan first got involved in the mid-1990s, eventually becoming a member of the group's scholarship board. The transportation lobbyist calls her WGR bonds special, because the group has allowed her to form friendships in addition to business alliances. While her involvement in WGR has tapered off, the friendships she made remain. And forging such lasting friendships is the key to networking in Washington, Sullivan says: This sociability is "more rewarding [than] the crass idea of networking."

Sullivan keeps in touch with the women she first met as a 22-year-old staff assistant on Capitol Hill, and has a fondness for the people that she "came up the ranks with." That "I've-been-there" feeling is what pushes Sullivan to reach out to the younger generations of women seeking to rise through the ranks. As a committee staffer in 1992, Sullivan remembers the time a male colleague showed her a list of more than a dozen candidates for an assistant counsel position -- all of them men. "There was absolutely no malice in it," Sullivan says -- "it was just that his network was all men." She urged her co-worker to add some women to the mix. She immediately dialed her female friends, asking around for qualified individuals and within a week handed over a list of women to add to the applicant pool. In the end, the male colleague went with one of the women. "By letting me expand his list, he expanded his network, too," Sullivan said.

Sullivan's story demonstrates how women can best operate in an environment where they are often outnumbered. "Instead of complaining about the old-boy network, it's incumbent upon us women to create our own," she states.

LeeAnn Petersen, manager of government relations at Volvo, readily agrees that women face "an old-boy network, you can't deny it." But, like Sullivan, Petersen says, "We're not trying to replace that, we're just trying to supplement that."

Petersen is also a member of WGR. She says that such women-focused groups "are special because you do feel more comfortable going to another woman. There's this very sincere attitude of 'let's help each other, let's give each other a leg up.'" That same mentality isn't always so clear outside of female circles, says Petersen, a WGR board member. "With men, sometimes you don't know why they're helping you. Is it because they feel like they have to? Do they feel bad for you? You can't always be sure, but with women, you know it's sincere."

For WGR members, Petersen says, her group offers exposure, mentorship, and "the ability to pick people's brains." And it offers educational seminars, brown-bag lunch talks, and, in true networking fashion, a golf tournament. Help, as a result, is often just a phone call away. "If you're looking to change jobs or if you just have a question," Petersen says, "as a member of the group with such a wealth of connections, you know you can go into that Rolodex and look for help."

At a turning point in her career, Caroline Fisher did just that. Fisher, a 29-year-old Virginia native, was in her second year as a paralegal and considering a career move. Unsure of what to do, Fisher turned to her friends in the Washington Women's Shooting Club for advice. The club's membership includes women from all kinds of industries, and while its focus is not on professional advancement, Fisher says that the subject can and does come up during target practice. So the decision to call Suzie Brewster, a prominent Capitol Hill lobbyist, was easy. Fisher used the club to tap into the "lifetime database" of contacts that Brewster and other club members could offer, and she succeeded in getting a job as a legal recruiter. Brewster said that because of bonding through the shooting-league sisterhood (participating in the admittedly male-dominated sport "gets you respect from the get-go," says Fisher), helping Fisher was a no-brainer. "There can be so many of what I call 'plastic people' in town," Brewster said. "I knew Caroline was not one of them."

Fisher notes that the shooting group has another benefit -- shooting. She started shooting trap and skeet as a child and was on the University of Kentucky's club team. Fisher recognizes that most women aren't as experienced as she is, and learning the elementary tactics in a comfortable, women-only environment can entice more people to pick up the sport. In 2003, Fisher began a club separate from the shooting league, and it has more than 40 members in its third year. Brewster, who also participates in the league, attributes the sport's popularity to the fact that the women "finally discovered they enjoyed something that they thought was a 'Bubba sport.'" For six weeks in the fall and spring, the group of women, many of whom work on Capitol Hill, head out to the Prince George's County Trap and Skeet Center for Sunday morning practice, followed by brunch and, most likely, a little Beltway chatter.

Brunch is what brings the Ladies of D.C. together each month. One small item on the menu is networking. Lindsey Mask, press secretary of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, started what she thought would be a casual dinner group of a few friends that would meet once a month. The group would be intimate, a pastime for the 30-year-old Texan who moved to Washington last February. Instead, news of Mask's group spread by word of mouth. It swelled to more than 50 women and evolved into a brunch group with a Yahoo! Web site. While a majority of the monthly attendees are Hill staffers, participation is not limited to any industry or age group. Mask attributes the group's success to its lack of formal structure -- no membership fees or criteria to join.

"You don't have women battling each other, you just have women educating each other," Mask said. Each month, women of different backgrounds and interests sit side by side, talking about everything from life in Washington to how to handle the shift from the public to the private sector, where to work on a campaign, or how to decide which graduate program to enroll in. The group's e-mail list resembles a press secretary's media list. Mask has spreadsheets for restaurant picks, has a calendar of events, and has composed e-mail invitations for upcoming get-togethers. In other words, her skills as a press secretary shine through.

Mask doubts that the connections she's made through the LDC have been the key reason for securing a new job or getting in touch with important contacts, but she concedes that access to such a large group of professional women is helpful. After all, the person who hired her at the committee "knew about LDC," which "I'm sure helped matters. Knowing all these people means more sources of information."

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