Nevada girls receive advice on job outlook at conference

      Carpenter Bobbie Washington dissected doorknobs Saturday and talked candidly about her male-dominated profession with teen-agers gathered at UNLV for a girls-only career summit.
      "Jobs don't have a gender," Washington told a dozen students in her morning workshop. "Take advantage of all that's out there. If you want to make money, look at the jobs white males have and start planning to get those jobs right away.
      "If you don't have support and strength from others, find more strength from within yourself."
      Washington said she's run into rude, chauvinistic men throughout her 18 years in the construction business. "Unfortunately, that's to be expected," she said while teaching the girls how to reconstruct doorknobs. "Just don't let them stop you."
      Kelli Duncan, an eighth-grader who is thinking about becoming a veterinarian, traveled 8 1/2 hours from Lovelock to attend this year's Expanding Your Horizons Conference at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
      She was one of more than 400 girls -- sixth- through 12th-graders from throughout Nevada -- who gathered for the 10th annual conference.
      "I liked her message," Duncan said about Washington's advice on work-place survival and financial independence. "It's good to see girls come together and meet women who are successful, who are doing just as good a job as men are."
      Duncan helps her family run a ranch in Northern Nevada, she said, "so I know women can work as hard as men."
      Tiffany Sulitis, a sixth-grader from Pahrump, sided with Duncan and Washington.
      "Life is hard, but you can do well and get a good job whether you're a man or a woman," said Sulitis, who is considering a career in medicine. "Something like this helps us know what the different jobs are."
      That's one of the event's main goals, said Joyce Nelson-Leaf, director of UNLV's Educational Equity Resource Center.
      "A lack of exposure to women in nontraditional careers helps keep females out," Nelson-Leaf said. "What girls are exposed to becomes very important. When they see role models in engineering and physics, they're going to be able to visualize themselves doing the same things."
      Some 80 women challenged stereotypes Saturday and held workshops or served on panels during the conference, which focused mostly on science and math.
      "They're the heart of this whole thing," Nelson-Leaf said. "They're so much appreciated for that."
      Gail Lucas, who skated professionally for 20 years before becoming a computer programer, held a workshop titled "Electrifying Careers." She taught attendees about electric cars, one of her passions.
      Lucas, who hasn't bought a gallon of gasoline in five years, drove a banana-yellow electric car to the conference, showing it off to her students and teaching them about its innards.
      "I'm rather impressed with how the girls want to learn new things," Lucas said. "The electric car industry is something women already have a foothold in. It seems like a perfect career choice, if girls find out about it and like it."
      Lucas said parents should take every opportunity to introduce their daughters to math and science. "That's where the best jobs are, and girls are very curious once they find out about something."
      Among the conference's volunteers was UNLV sophomore Toni Collins, who years ago attended the Expanding Your Horizons Conference as a 12-year-old.
      "I love being here now, and I loved it then," said Collins, who's majoring in German.