One is chairman and CEO of an investment company and travels out of state twice a month and to Russia annually to conduct business.
Another is president of a research laboratory and production company with 310 employees and $70 million in annual revenue.
A third runs operations for a polling company that posted $300 million in annual revenue last year and has about 2,300 employees in 28 cities across the world, the bulk of them in Omaha.
The three share more than the rarity of being women in business leadership positions in Omaha. Each was hired to run her father’s company: Lisa Roskens of Burlington Capital Group from founder Michael Yanney; Connie Ryan of Streck Laboratories from founder Wayne Ryan; Jane Miller of the Gallup Group. Her father is the late Don Clifton — whose company acquired Gallup a dozen years ago — and her Washington, D.C.-based brother, Jim Clifton, is CEO. Miller is chief operating officer and the face of the company in Omaha.
These three are among a number of powerful Omaha women who came by their positions through birth or marriage.
Of course, a number of men have come by their positions the same way. Bruce Lauritzen, for example, is chairman of First National Bank, which has been in his family for six generations.
Some say the daughters are positioned to help pave the way for more women.
But the family connection can be a mixed bag: a built-in privilege and opportunity to leapfrog into the executive suite — but one with a high bar of expectation.
Roskens kept turning down her father’s requests that she take over the then-named America First Cos. “I assumed you went to work for daddy when you couldn’t make it on your own,” said Roskens, 42, who has a law degree and worked as an attorney and a consultant.
Yanney hired her initially as a consultant — to help him determine how the company should structure itself for the future, including finding a successor. Roskens’ husband proofread her draft report one night and told her: “This is the job you always described to me.”
That was eight years ago, and Roskens was 34. She took the job, restructured America First and then won a $243 million contract to renovate or build 2,255 housing units at Offutt Air Force Base in Bellevue.
Ryan joined her father’s research firm 27 years ago, at the bottom. It was 1982, and she was a medical technician with three children; her assignment was to answer technical service calls.
After 10 years, she had learned the business and really liked it. She and others lobbied her father to put her in the job. He named her “acting president” for six months, then hired her for the role permanently. Wayne Ryan remains CEO.
Had her father not hired and promoted her, Connie Ryan believes she would not, at age 57, be where she is.
“I just think it’s very difficult to move up into executive management if you don’t have that connection,” Ryan said. “It’s a very unusual man that would pick a woman.”
Miller, of Gallup, said family members have to work harder and achieve more.
“You are held to higher standards,” she said in an e-mail.
Jim Clifton, her older brother, runs strategy and “offense,” which she described as revenue-generating business development, while Miller runs “defense,” or client services.
The company also employs the siblings’ two sisters, two nephews and Miller’s husband. But each is specialized and has earned his or her spot, she said, noting both sisters hold doctorates in education, her husband is an engineer and the nephews are an attorney and a best-selling author.
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