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Mary McDowell, Vice President Compaq, Industry-Standard Server Group

by Peg Townsend

Mary McDowell had been working 100-hour weeks on a project for Compaq Computer Corporation.

Like other members of the team, the young engineer didn't mind the work days that stretched to 1 a.m.  Like them, she was filled with a passion for what they were creating.

So when it came time to name the product she and her team had created, they came up with something they thought described perfectly their product.

"Ascendant," they chorused. That was the perfect name.

"It's not Jesus Christ," the exasperated marketing director told them. "It's just a computer."

McDowell and her team were crushed.  They believed a product that would dominate the market, deserved a triumphant name.

The product eventually became known as System Pro. But McDowell and the team were right in one sense.  Their product, a server based on the Intel chip, soon became the high-growth division for the Texas-based computer giant.

It's that kind of passion and loyalty that McDowell, who is now vice president of the company's Industry-Standard Server Group, believes is the key to success.

It's why, in a business that shifts as much as the sands of the Sahara, McDowell has remained a constant at Compaq.

Born in the Midwest, McDowell's father was an engineer and her mother was a teacher. But while McDowell was in college, her mother went to school to become an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ.

"My mother was a very open thinker and has overcome a lot of personal adversity," McDowell says.  "Hers was the triumph of intellect and perseverance over adversity."

It's a lesson the young engineering student absorbed.

Out of college, McDowell was recruited by a number of companies, but she liked the style and energy of Compaq.

There were some kinks in the hiring process, however, and faced with other job offers and the need to make some money to support herself, McDowell called to see if a position was in the offing.

"They had some funny head count thing and...they said if I needed to know now, the answer was no," McDowell remembers.

Her feelings hurt, she accepted a job with NCR in Dayton, Ohio.

But before she could show up for her first day of work, a representative from Compaq called McDowell to say he had figured out the numbers and wanted her to work for the company.

"I said 'no' and hung up on them," says McDowell with a laugh. "My feelings were hurt."

Her mother, the minister, took her daughter aside.

"Do you want to work for them?" she asked.

When McDowell said yes, her mother gave her advice that changed her life.

"Then swallow your pride and call them back," she told her daughter.

"I never regretted it," says McDowell, who has been with the company for 14 years.

McDowell's career has been one steady climb since that days when she was 21.   It was fueled, she says, by hard work, passion and loyalty.

For all of her career, McDowell says she hasn't been afraid to get her hands dirty.  When she moved into the company's product planning group, for instance, she often got the worst assignments.

She was shipping products and lugging equipment off to photo shoots.  Nothing was too humble for her to do.

Working hard like McDowell did, is a recipe for success, but so is being noticed, she says.

"The thing that tends to set women apart is that they assume their accomplishments will be recognized. They tend not to be so overt.  They don't stand up and shout, 'this is due to me,'" McDowell says.

"Women are more team-oriented."

But women need to make sure their contributions are recognized, McDowell says.  It's not bragging; it's simply stating a fact.

Like lots of powerful women in the high-tech business, McDowell has had her share of job offers.  But McDowell has elected to stay at Compaq.

Part of the reason has been that she has been given an opportunity to constantly learn. The other part is that McDowell has a Midwestern sense of loyalty.

Even when times were tough, she stayed at the company, believing that it would be wrong to walk out.

"I felt like I had an obligation to keep things together and keep moving forward," McDowell says. 

"There was a sense of ownership," she says.  "It was built on a lot of sweat equity."

So McDowell stuck it out and rose as the company moved upward again.

She's never been sorry - even as she watched some of her peers cash out and retire.

McDowell puts in long hours, traveling around the globe.  To unwind, she loves to sit down with a good murder mystery, reading two or three a week.

English, courtroom, historical - McDowell loves them all.  The more spine-tingling, the better.

It's funny, she says, that raised by a mother who preaches love and peace, she came to love a grisly murder mystery.

"It's a way to de-stress," she says.  "In corporate life, so many things take forever to resolve. It's nice to read a puzzle where everything ties up in the end and justice prevails."

In a way, that's what drives the 35-year-old.

Sitting in her office with the posters of Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon on the walls, McDowell believes old-fashioned values have a place in the high-tech world.

"It's a sense of wanting to do right," McDowell says.

So she makes herself open to her employees, going down to the cafeteria to say hi, setting up lunch meetings where workers can come to her with questions or suggestions.

She'd rather be approachable than wall herself off with her success at the company.

She'd rather do what's right, than trade her loyalty for money.

For her success, is setting up a goal and reaching it.

"It's not about money," she says.  "Money is never a good measure of self.

"You have to look at yourself and say, 'did I do what I was going to do?'"

For McDowell, the answer is yes.

Written by Peg Townsend, copyright 2001 Techdivas, all rights reserved