Banner Graphic, Volume 10, Number 204, Greencastle, Putnam County, 1 May 1980 — Page 5

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Probably The Best part about vocational education is •that students have the opportunity to apply what they learn in the classroom. Manning the hammers in this particular situation are North Putnam juniors (from left) Steve

youth

Young bosses call the shots

By FRED FERRETTI c. 1980 N.Y. Times News Eervice NEW YORK The question came from Michelle Viert, 11 years old. “What are you doing.” she asked, “to improve the role of women in your company?” Stanley I. Landgraf. president and chief •executive officer of the Mohasco Corp., smiled tentatively, laughed, “Heh, heh,” and said to his. assembled stockholders, “Learning very young, isn’t she?” He paused, then he began: ■ “As a company we have promoted that didn’t come out quite like I intended we have encouraged the expanded use of young ladies in various parts of our company. We have no officers who are young ladies, though we have them moving up the ranks. We have very brilliant young ladies in management roles, in the area of computer programming.” And he added. “We’ll have a place for you in a few ’years.” He smiled. Landgraf was to smile a good deal at the stockholders’ meeting, but with little enjoyment. It wasn’t that the students, teachers and parents from the Francis Scott Key Elementary School in Arlington, Va., made the officers and board and other stockholders of Mohasco nervous when they finally trooped into the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting Tuesday at the company’s seventh-floor headquarters at 919 Third Ave. But there was some unease among the 150 stockholders sitting beneath a Woven Alexander Smith Carpet plaque who had expected, it seemed, a somewhat more placid Session. The fifth-and sixth-graders had bought six shares of Mohasco, which makes Mohawk and Alexander Smith carpets as well as a broad range of furniture, as part of a school economics project devised by their teacher, Ronald Graham. After receiving $125 from his school board for the project, Graham took in $2 each from his students and with a $l9O total the class composed a stock portfolio consisting of the Mohasco stock, five shares of Dr Pepper and one share of Ensearch, a natural gas company. Since March, when they bought the stock, Mohasco’s price has dropped, and so by chartered bus Tuesday morning, the 22 students, four parents, a librarian and Graham drove to New York from Arlington to find out why. Before they arrived Mohasco was tense. Rex Maltbie, assistant to the president, kept pacing the beige carpeting, looking at his watch. “It’s almost 11,” he said. “They should have been here by now.” J Would Mohasco wait. '• “A little while,” he said, “But after all this is an important meeting.”

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Then, as if on cue, the children arrived and were ushered into the section set aside for them, 30 rented chairs surrounded by a red velvet rope. They were greeted by Mohasco’s chairman. Herbert L. Shuttleworth 2d, who said he was delighted to have the children from Alexandria on hand. “Arlington,” shouted a childish voice. “Oh yes, Arlington,” said Shuttleworth. They sat in their reserved section, shifting" restlessly while Landgraf went through a recital of the company’s financial position, which turned out to be a tale of improved sales but reduced earnings. Then, when Landgraf asked if there were any questions from the assembled stockholders, Billy Morgan, 12, asked when the company was started. Landgraf smiled and said, “1845.” Joe Blackburn, also 12, asked, “How much stock in the company do the officers own?” and Landgraf replied, “About 2 percent.” Gregor Bell, 11, noting that Landgraf had / said that the company’s poor profit picture had come about mainly because of all of the petroleum-based fibers used and because petroleum prices kept rising, asked, “I’m wondering if you have any plans to substitute fibers?” Landgraf paused, smiled gingerly and replied, “Everything that goes into a carpet comes out of the well,” such as fibers, dyes, latex, and wrapping. “We’re really tied to the basic price of oil,” he said. He kept looking for questions on the other side of the room, but aside from perfunctory questions from two stockholders, the interest came from the schoolchildren. Steve Koumanelis, 12, asked “What kind of work do officers do with the company?” Landgraf hesitated. "That’s a difficult one to answer. They study all the data, financial data, sales. They help the operating people with strategies. They select key management personnel.” He stopped but the young boy kept looking and Landgraf added, “They are involved in planning, review and personnel functions.” Cheryl Miller, 12, wanted to know if the company expected its stock to go up by the end of May, and Landgraf said it was “difficult to predict.” Then, with the meeting still on, Maltbie beckoned for them to rise and follow him. He explained that it wasn’t that Mohasco wanted the schoolchildren out of the room. Not at all. The company just wanted to be sure that the boys and girls kept their appointment at the New York Stock Exchange, on which their Mohasco stock closed Tuesday at $8 a share.

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Greeson and Andy Beck, while Monty Keyt provides additional assistance. All are under the guidance of North Putnam teacher Gayle Osborn (Banner-Graphic photo by Becky Igo).

Jobs in their future?

STILLWATER, Okla. (AP) - Planning realistically for a career should be part of every curriculum from kindergarten through college, believes Joe Weber, graduate teaching assistant in home economics at Oklahoma State University. Weber and Mary Miller, chairman of the OSU basic home economics program, concluded from recent research that there is a lack of emphasis on a practical approach to future employment. The two researchers studied factors related to career aspirations, potential job satisfaction and parental encouragement of college freshmen entering home economics. The study involved 177 women and five men. “Our findings indicate that many of today’s home-econom-ics students seem to be caught in a double bind between traditional roles and current expectations,” Weber said. “Many see themselves attending college to enhance their employability, but few ever expect to work outside the home.”

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Students need practical out look

College freshmen, especially women, have unrealistic expectations about the future, Weber says the study shows. “Even though many freshmen never expect to be employed after graduation, the fact is that 75 percent of all women work 30 years,” he said. Weber and Mrs. Miller found that nearly four in five of the students surveyed indicated “a good marriage and family” was important to their lives, while fewer than one in 10 said “having lots of money” was important. When students were asked if they would work outside the home if they had children of preschool age, almost 80 percent indicated they definitely would not, or were undecided. Sixty-one percent of the mothers of students included in the study worked outside the home. “The mothers’ employment status seems to influence the students’ career outlook,” Mrs. Miller pointed out. “Mothers provide role models for their daughters,” she explained. “Daughters of mothers

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May 1,1980, The Putnam County Banner Graphic

employed outside the home are more likely than other daughters to be career-oriented, to recognize they can combine a career and marriage, and to consider future employment a distinct possibility.” She noted that 90 percent of the students said they had come to college to prepare for a career. Almost two-thirds of those were children of working mothers.

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Mothers not working outside the home are more likely tc view their task as that of pre : paring their daughters for marriage, and these mothers are less likely than others to encourage their daughters to seek employment. Findings of this study support previous research in career aspirations of freshmen college females, the researchers said.

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