Business Women

Look for a new Women's Business Resource Center to open later this month in downtown Los Angeles. The center, which is being launched by the Los Angeles chapter of the National Assn. of Women Business Owners, will be in the Westin Bonaventure Hotel. It will offer free and low-cost business service to a variety of women business owners, including those from low-income communities. Resources will include a technology center, a meeting facility and a business library.

Kim Mascheroni has been in the antiques business for only five years, but already she has opened four California stores and has her sights set on the rest of the country. People who wander into her West Hollywood shop, full of solidly luminous old Chinese pieces, tend to make all the wrong assumptions about the owner.

Tracey Ross finishes a minuscule lunch of bananas, melon and strawberries on the wraparound patio of Cafe Med and strolls half a block down Sunset Boulevard to the boutique that bears her name. She walks through the open door to find: (1) A beautifully blond and pregnant movie star (Natasha Henstridge) standing in the middle of the shop with her equally blond and gorgeous husband at her side. (2) The pregnant wife of another movie star (Linda Caan, as in James) sitting on an ottoman.

The City Council recently recognized Roseanna Stevens for her success as a businesswoman and manager of C.A. Stevens Jewelers, which has been open for 45 years. While longtime businesses are common in Fullerton, the longevity of Stevens Jewelers is unusual because it never became part of a chain operation, said Gary Chalupsky, the city's redevelopment and economic development director. Stevens attributes her success to the business shrewdness and artistic talents of her late husband, C.A.

As Women's History Month began drawing to a close, it seemed appropriate to mention some of Southern California's outstanding businesswomen of the past. But that task proved more difficult than it should have last week when the Historical Society of Southern California and the Los Angeles mayor's office drew blanks. It's easier to find businessmen in history. Just take a look at the names of parks, streets and various landmarks.

You're a woman working alongside several other female employees for a major corporation in the U.S. You've just gotten a new boss from the firm's British headquarters; he at least seems polite, if a little standoffish. All goes well until the day, shortly after his arrival, that he walks out of his office and asks rather loudly, "How are the biddies doing today?" So much for British reserve.

The National Assn. of Women Business Owners on Friday honored women from more than 30 Orange County businesses, schools and nonprofit organizations for setting outstanding examples. Special awards went to Vicki Heston, vice chairwoman of Vicki Heston PDQ Staffing; Cynthia French, chief executive officer at Reprogran Inc.

Hoang Thi Mai, a sweet-faced mother of four, removes her rubber thongs and slips fully clothed into a large pond twice a week to do battle for a slippery, wiggling tilapia. The so-called aquatic chicken, a fish native to Africa with the delicate taste of flounder, will be supper for her extended family of eight in a single-room home of mud and thatch in Vietnam's verdant northern mountains.

Wanted: retired businesswomen to advise their young counterparts on everything from record keeping to licenses to insurance. As the Orange County office of the Service Corps of Retired Executives gets ready for Small Business Week June 1-7, its biggest need is for female counselors. "Our generation of women really weren't out in the workplace much," said Betty J. Otte, a SCORE counselor who made the transition from teacher to small-business woman. "We were odd ducks." SCORE, sponsored by the U.