Three Women

Note from blogger Barbara Adachi: My good friend, Branko Terzic, was just honored by the Women’s Council on Energy and Environment with the 2008 Champion Award. This got me thinking about how and why he became such a champion for women in the workforce. So, I’ve asked him to share his story with all of us.

My awareness and concern for women’s rights grew out of the personal stories of three women very dear and important to me: my mother, my wife, and my daughter.

My mother’s story, so very familiar to many women of her generation, is one of frustrated educational and career aspirations. Olivera Terzic’s desire to continue her medical school studies was disrupted by the invasion and occupation of her country, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, by Nazi Germany followed by five years in refugee camps. To stay close to medicine she trained as a practical nurse, putting her life on the line by volunteering to look after high mortality typhus patients in the epidemic ravaged refugee camps of post-war Italy. Sadly, that’s where her aspirations for a medical career ended. Coming to this country from a Displaced Persons camp in Germany after World War II there were no college scholarships available, and certainly no medical school slots open, for a 30-year-old immigrant mother of two who aspired to be a doctor.

My wife Judith’s story is a bit more positive. She aspired to be an architect, but it was the 60s and her counselors and others dissuaded her from that career choice. I believe they knew the low probability that she would be given a fair chance in, what at that time was, a male-dominated profession. However, Judith went on to a successful career as a set and costume designer in the theater and would have continued, had I not failed to mail her resumé off to faraway Houston, Texas, and instead asked her to marry me and remain in Milwaukee.

The third story is that of my daughter, Elizabeth, who told me that, as a young accounting graduate, she chose Deloitte from among competing offers, not because I worked there, but because a woman was chairman of Deloitte’s board.

And so, in three generations, progress has been made, but not for every woman, not in every career field, not in every industry, and not in every office.

I could not help my mother or my wife when they were starting out, but, as a father, I clearly tried to do all any father would do to make sure my daughter got a fair chance in her professional career. I am pleased that she was able to make her own choices about her career without anyone telling her she couldn’t do it. Not all women have that chance.

For that reason, I joined the Industry Advisory Board of the Women’s Council on Energy and Environment, giving me the chance to do what I could not for my mother or my wife--to mentor and advise women in the profession they had chosen. 

The issue of “women’s rights” is, of course, intertwined with that of full “human rights.” I hope my own story will demonstrate that “human rights” and “women’s rights” can be addressed on an individual basis and in everyday life.

"The battle for individual rights of women is one of long standing and none of us should countenance anything which undermines it." — Eleanor Roosevelt

Branko

By guest blogger Branko Terzic, Global & U.S. Regulatory Policy Leader in Energy & Resources, Deloitte Services LP

Comments

[Catherine]

I love the whole concept that Deloitte is promoting among women in the professions. I am starting on a new career path at 40, and I am enjoying my experience at the university. I cannot wait to begin a career in accounting, a profession that I have always been drawn to. Mr. Terzik's perspective truly enhances Deloitte's agenda, and it was a very warm expression of your view of women's place in business.

[Judy in Pittsburgh]

This is refreshing perspective to see whether from a man or woman (although from son, husband and father is very heart warming!). I believe the working woman of our organization take for granted that our cause is championed both within and without the firm. I was quite surprised a few weeks ago when one of the other mothers of the kids on my son's baseball team said that parents don't think twice about sending a son to a good/expensive college, whereas they may have reservations about sending a daughter as she may not "use" the education if she retires from the workforce to raise children.” I was equally happy to hear another mother of a child on the same team say that she was the recipient of a much lower cost education than her two brothers, but was recently chosen by her boss (a man) to attend an executive MBA program sponsored by Wharton, in recognition of her career advancement and potential. Obviously, he believes she will benefit and excel with such training. I feel very fortunate that my mother, a widow at 40, chose to encourage my sister and I to attend competitive colleges and pursue our careers. We watched her re-enter the workforce when my father died, after being a stay-at-home mother for 18 years, and support us very well. That her father had chosen to send her to college in the WWII era, is testimony to the value of education to all of us.