Oral History Program Marcia White Interviewed by Sarah Taylor 24 June 2019 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Marcia White Interviewed by Sarah Taylor 24 June 2019 Copyright © 2022 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Beyond Suffrage Project was initiated to examine the impact women have had on northern Utah. Weber State University explored and documented women past and present who have influenced the history of the community, the development of education, and are bringing the area forward for the next generation. The project looked at how the 19th Amendment gave women a voice and representation, and was the catalyst for the way women became involved in the progress of the local area. The project examines the 50 years (1870-1920) before the amendment, the decades to follow and how women are making history today. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: White, Marcia, an oral history by Sarah Taylori, 24 June 2019, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Marcia White 24 June 2019 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Marcia White, conducted on June 24, 2019, at Weber State University, by Sarah Taylor. Marcia discusses her life, her involvement in politics, and the impact of the 19th Amendment. Lorrie Rands, the video technician, is also present during the interview. ST: Today is Monday, June 24th, 2019. The time is 10:05 AM. We are in the Olene Walker Institute Conference Room. I am Sarah Taylor. Lorrie Rands is operating the camera, and we are interviewing Marcia White. Thank you again for meeting with us and agreeing to do this. MW: Thank you. ST: Alright, so right off the bat, why don’t we start with where and when you were born? MW: I was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. My birthday is June 5th, 1963, so I just had a birthday. LR: Happy birthday. ST: Could you tell us a bit about like your family growing up, like who were your parents and what were they like? MW: Growing up, I’m the oldest of three. I have two younger sisters. I had a great raising, if you will. My mom and dad, my mom worked for the governor of Nebraska for a couple of terms, and then he went on to be the U.S. Senator for a couple of terms. My mom was a pioneer in her own right. She got a business degree in the ‘50s, that wasn’t heard of very often, went on to an accounting firm then was his executive assistant or executive secretary, then ran his Lincoln 2 office when he was the U.S. Senator. My dad actually worked for him. He owned a furniture office equipment store, so he did a lot of work in that arena and was very innovative and smart and one of those guys who loved computers, so self-taught computer person. Had a great upbringing and Lincoln is a very similar town to Ogden, a little bit bigger. A college town, so like Weber State, as kind of the center of town . . . so got to experience a lot of things growing up. ST: Okay. You called your mom a pioneer. Would you say she was very influential on your life and your aspirations for yourself? How would you say she impacted you in that way? MW: My mom and my grandma were very much pioneers. My mom, always pushing me as far as trying to play both sides, debate me. My dad did that too. Debating me a lot on understanding politics, understanding just basic things, what the current events were for the day, basically. Our dinners were always about something new, something relevant to what was happening in the world that day. Then my grandma was actually another great pioneer and an influence in my life, because she was the president of the Business and Professional Women’s Organization. Obviously a pioneer at a time when women weren’t getting involved, but decided she needed to be part of an organization that helped women. So I had very strong women in my life that were able to kind of just push me along. LR: What were your parents’ names and what was your grandmother’s name? 3 MW: My dad is David White and my mom’s Frances White, and my grandma’s name was Geraldine Pflaum. They were very strong influencers for sure. There was always a debate at the table. Always. ST: Where did you go to school? MW: I went through the Lincoln public school system, elementary to high school. I went to Lincoln Southeast, then went on to the University of Wyoming for a couple of years. I had a scholarship to play softball out there. They gave that program up and replaced it with Women’s Riflery, which, I wasn’t a very good rifle shooter. Even though I did grow up learning how to hunt and fish. But I came home and finished my degree in industrial engineering at the University of Nebraska, and I have a Master’s in public administration from the University of Nebraska as well. ST: Were you encouraged to pursue an education? MW: You didn’t even get a choice. It was, “You will go to college.” But I think that had a lot to do with my mom too. She also pursued a degree and education, so it wasn’t even a choice of, “You’re not going to college.” Not even time off, like you can’t even travel abroad; you have to go to college. LR: You’ve kind of already answered it, but I’m going to ask the question anyway. As a young girl, what were some of the women you looked up to? MW: Oh my gosh. There were a lot of people that I was able to be surrounded by, and they were mostly political figures, or at least worked on political campaigns or within the political system. Geraldine Ferraro was one of my all-time favorite high powered political figures. There was a mayor of Lincoln that I looked up to: her 4 name was Helen Boosalis. When I got out of college, my first job was with Bryan Hospital as an engineer. It was the Business and Professional Women’s Organization that I was surrounded by a lot of older women that took me under their wings—I don’t want to say older, cause they aren’t that much older. Now in retrospect, they’re probably like five years older—But Lincoln has a great community where they are able to mentor a lot of women because they’re not threatened by women that are coming up through the ranks. They would take you under their arms and they would teach you about just different things. But political figures usually were my favorites. How do you become the first woman mayor in Lincoln, Nebraska in probably the ‘80s or ‘90s? She was probably the ‘90s. We can Google it. It was actually 1975 and until 1983. ST: You mentioned admiring all these political figures and there’s kind of this atmosphere of mentorship. What were kind of the qualities that you admired in them that you aspired to have in yourself? MW: Oh my gosh, you can’t name one thing. Because one person would be really strong and just to the point and direct and another would be more of a soft, helping you out and getting you through a bad spot or something, so it was probably more about the ability for them to let themselves be themselves, just help you than it was about any one particular characteristic. It was more about them holding themselves up and being an open book kind of thing as opposed to one characteristic. That’s hard. I think that actually shaped what I do, so I try to be an open book. I don’t know how I lead or anything like that, but I’m one of those people that tries to be transparent and say, “That’s not going to be a good 5 thing for you,” or trying to be that open book person as well. I think that actually had shaped me more than I actually realized until you asked that question. ST: For extracurricular activities, you mentioned that you were really involved in this atmosphere of politics, all these figures you aspired to be, and then you also mentioned softball. Was there any other extracurricular activities that you were into growing up? MW: I played all the sports. We didn’t have lacrosse or anything like that, but I played basketball, softball, volleyball. The thing that my mom wouldn’t let me not do was just to ride on my athletic ability. I also had to play flute in the symphony. I couldn’t play in the band, cause that’s when we met for early morning practices, so the band always practiced early. I always had to do symphony. She involved me with United Nations or the Junior Model United Nations. She helped me get a “seat at the table” for the Lincoln Parks and Recreation Advisory Board committee when I was in high school. You couldn’t just be an athlete; you had to be everything else. You had to have a well-rounded background. ST: What were kind of the experiences serving on the student United Nations and also the Parks and Recreation committee? How do you feel those kind of influenced you? MW: The student United Nations, I didn’t realize how big the world was. When you’re growing up, you think your world is just your family and your friends and then you get into this and it’s like, “Jordan? What is that?” So you kind of had a different respect for different cultures, different nations, more of the diversity of the world, which I thought was awesome. Parks and Recreation was kind of an interesting 6 committee because I got there and—of course, it was a time when everything was in books and you’re like reading through papers and books and—I didn’t realize how much policy went on. I think it was my start to understanding life in politics. More about what the actual doing is as opposed to just seeing it happen and being a part of that. LR: And you did this in high school? MW: Yeah. It kind of, from junior high to high school. Yeah, there wasn’t a dull moment in our house. LR: What would you do for fun? MW: Oh, well I managed to do everything a kid does. Movies and parties. I mean that was . . . pool parties, those kind of things. We had a pool in our backyard. It was fun to be around friends. ST: Sounds like never a dull moment. MW: No, I mean why not experience it? I was very lucky in that both my parents were able to allow me a life that I was able to expand my envelope, so I tried almost everything and there were things I hated, like, “I’m not going to do that again.” ST: I’m just curious, what were some of the things you hated? MW: You know what, even though I like it today, I did competitive swimming and I hated it. I mean I hated the competitiveness of that. I loved the swimming and being around my friends. LR: That’s interesting, with politics being competitive. MW: Yeah. I just hated the competitive. I love to swim for relaxation, but I don’t know…so I didn’t do that for very long. Then, my parents thought it would be 7 good to put me in ballet early on, and I didn’t want to… just jumping around, so they decided that was probably not a good thing. I’m not a very coordinated person. ST: You said that you were doing all the extracurricular activities and like you’re involved in all this political stuff all throughout junior high and high school. When you approached high school graduation, what was your idea or expectations for yourself going forward? You said that education wasn’t up for debate, so what were you thinking? MW: That’s a good question. I don’t know that I really thought forward too far. You know I think kids today probably have more of a forward thinking of what they want to be when they grow up. I didn’t have that. I didn’t know what I wanted to be. I don’t remember getting pushed by my parents either, in a direction. They just, “Get in there and get a degree.” And I don’t know that I really ever felt like it was in a direction. I went out to Wyoming and after they gave up the softball program, my dad said, “Well, why don’t you come back and just be an engineer?” I’m like, “Okay.” It was kind of that, and I’m lucky for that, that I was able to be smart enough that I was able to do that. Because I was in psychology in Wyoming there was a little bit of a shift. He convinced me that industrial engineering was the same as industrial psychology. It’s not, just so you know. Not even close. But I was fortunate enough to be smart enough to take that on. ST: You mentioned your Bachelor’s earlier. What was it—Industrial and Management Systems Engineering? So you ended up going into engineering? 8 MW: I did. Interesting field. I went into a time when hospitals were changing over the way they were getting paid from insurance companies, and they were using engineers to do time studies and cost analysis, because they didn’t know how long it took or how much time and/or cost it was, so they were hiring engineers. I got into the health care field pretty early, kind of on the ground floor of what engineers were doing. Different than an industry, but that’s okay. ST: One question I had, what has been your experience working as a woman in a STEM field? ‘Cause that’s science and I’m wondering— MW: Funny. No, it was interesting because I was just thinking about when you [Lorrie] said she [Sarah] was an intern, but when I was an intern. It was at a time when women had the blue suits, but you had to wear a skirt, and you had to have nylons on. It’s a little bit different now. I went out to an industry and the guys were giving me a hard time because I couldn’t get around as easily on the floor as the other interns. They hopped over something and I’m like, “Screw it, I’m going to do it too.” So I hopped over in my skirt and got down. They were taken back because I don’t think they thought I was going to do it. Then they were like, “Okay, now do I mess with her or do I not? Do I dare her or not?” But you have to do those kind of things. When I tell them I’m an engineer, I think their first reaction, usually from men, is they’re taken back. I was accepted in the field, but you have to prove yourself, definitely have to prove yourself. LR: What was it like taking engineering classes? MW: That wasn’t bad. You know, industrial engineering wasn’t bad because there were a lot more women in that field. 9 LR: Okay. Industrial engineering. Can you explain what that is a little bit? MW: It’s a lot more like time studies. Or at the time, it was a lot more like time studies and ergonomics. A lot of women were going into that field because a lot of car companies were hiring women out of that field. The Navy was hiring women out of that field. They were really pushing women because they had built cars for men up until that point. They had built submarines for men in the Navy, and women were going into the Navy. They were having to ergonomically change a lot of different things, so they were really encouraging. A lot more women were prevalent in that engineering program. It was fine. ST: I’m wondering if there’s any more you have to say on this, cause I’m really fascinated in the history. You said that there’s also an atmosphere where you kind of have to prove yourself but there’s also a push for women in this field, so I’m kind of interested in how those two interacted or what were some experiences or thoughts you had about it. MW: I think that the hard part is—and I think it happens today too—but I think there’s a big push to get women into STEM related fields because that’s the right thing to do. But then, once they’re in that field, you have to get up and you have to prove yourself, so you had to prove yourself that you’re as good as the other guy. I have to actually say that I don’t know you have to prove yourself or if it’s the guy. I always say that men only need to know 50% and then they fake the other 50%. Women feel like they need to understand 80% and maybe they can fake 10% and then the other 10% you never know, so I don’t know if it’s that we have to prove ourselves or that we have to push ourselves harder or is it just men that 10 can fake it better. I don’t know that answer. See, if I’d been in psychology however, I could understand that much better. I think women do probably have to push harder, and they take a lot more criticism. They do, or at least I have. If I’m quiet or if I’m not talking, then it’s interesting that men step in. Especially on the council, for instance. If I have a moment of silence, a man has to step in and fix that silence, if you will. It’s not that I’m not able to have that next conversation. It’s that I’m probably thinking what I want to say before I say it, so it’s kind of an interesting . . . ST: Dynamic? MW: Yeah. Do I have to prove myself that I can keep talking? It’s kind of interesting, and I can tell you that men don’t even have these conversations in their head. They don’t even think about this. They don’t care; they’re like, “Whatever.” I don’t know if I answered your question. ST: I think you did. I think we’re good there. So, this is right out college, right? What was your first job? What did you end up kind of doing for that? MW: My first job right out of college, I worked in a hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska. They called them ‘management engineers.’ That was my first job. But I had quite a few jobs prior to that. Because you can’t just do sports and symphony and all of that, you have to have a job right on top of that. ST: Do you want to go into those? MW: No. You know, I started as an entrepreneur with my friend, mowing lawns. Because you can mow those anytime around softball practice. YMCA was really big in Lincoln, so I learned to referee football games and basketball games and 11 pick up odd jobs here. One of my favorite jobs, however, as another intern when I was in college, was in the physics lab, and they were actually splitting neutrons. There was a professor, then another woman that was studying splitting neutrons—I don’t know what her official title was. Now it’s like no big deal, but it was kind of cool at the time. “What am I doing? You’re letting me do what?” ST: What was the time, like the dates for this? When this was going on? MW: ‘83, ‘84. Somewhere in there. LR: How did you get involved in splitting neutrons? MW: I just picked a job. They were looking for student assistants and I’m like, “I can be a student assistant, why not?” Again, it’s that my parents never let me be fearful, so it’s like, “Why can’t I do this?” Until I got there and I was realizing I could blow things up. But mostly I was a data collector. Now they have computers that do that. I was like, “Oh, there is one, ok.” Then I’d write, “Split.” LR: After your job in the hospital in Lincoln, where did you move on from there? MW: A cool thing about what I did was it opened me up to the entire hospital. I would go into surgeries; I would see heart surgeries; I would see the financial side; I would see a lot of different things, so I was able to see every department within the hospital. Because of that, I got interested in negotiating contracts. I felt like I was a pretty good negotiator because I used data to negotiate the contracts, so I learned how to do that and then I was recruited to the University of Nebraska Med Center. Then, because I was in a specialty field, the University of Utah recruited me to come out here. That’s how I got out to Utah. I did quite a few jobs while I was there. The university was going through a lot of changes. They were 12 buying physician clinics and starting insurance plans, so I got to be involved with a lot of different things. I moved on to doing consulting in healthcare, then I got bored with doing that, so I started my own business. Again, I started a medical billing company, and most of the medical billing companies at the time were driven by somebody that was a really good at being a medical biller, usually they were started by someone coming up through the ranks and starting the company. I didn’t know about medical billing, but I knew that physician and providers needed data in order to run their practices better. So I started the company from the top down, how do I make it a business that I can give them that data? Then I started hiring the really good people around me. I had kind of the top-down look. I had that company, sold that company, and now back into consulting. ST: I’m curious to hear more about the business, ‘cause you went through that. You had it then you sold it. I feel like there’s more in there. MW: Oh, there’s a lot more in there. There’s hair pulling out. No, just kidding. Starting a business is probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Anybody that probably starts a business would tell you that. They would probably also tell you that it’s one of the most rewarding things you can ever do. I was lucky enough to hire some really good people that surrounded me, made me look good, and then it was a lot easier to go and get sales. We also started the collection agency for the medical providers that we had. At one point in time, we had up to 45 employees and I am not a manager, so I hired a really good manager to deal with employees. But I think it’s really important to hire those people that are going to make you shine, and then we all shine, and then we all get to be part of it. 13 It was difficult in that the margins were low. It was hard to provide health care. It was hard to do the things that you’re supposed to do as a business, that I think you should do. We did a lot that we could, as far as offering other things like compensation time. I gave them time off to go vote. We really worked with their schedules then if they wanted to come it at 7 and leave and 3:30, if they wanted to come in at 9 and leave at 5:30, or however that worked, depending on child care . . . We were really flexible with that. ‘because it was a small business, really, when it came right down to it. Big for me, small for them. Then, selling was an interesting . I actually hired a broker because I think I got more out of it because it is better that a third party is the person helping make the deal. The professionalism of a broker, than me just trying to say, “Hey, I’m worth so much,” then them saying, “No, you’re not,” and then me crying. I mean, you get really emotional. It was hard, so it was easier to have a broker out there negotiating the business. ST: What would you say some of the professional, or maybe personal, takeaways were from owning and running your own business? MW: Well, a lot of things. First of all, I would say, do a business plan. Had I not had a good business plan and a goal to grow so much every year, I think I would have probably gotten too much in the weeds of the business. If I ever talk to people when they’re starting a business, I always say, “at least set a goal. I want to grow by this time, I want to do this, I want to do this.” Then I always said I wanted an exit plan, and I didn’t know when that was, but I always knew that if I said I had an exit plan, that it didn’t matter if I didn’t exit. I just knew that I had to grow the 14 business enough to be able to say, “Okay, I can exit now.” A lot of people go in and they create jobs for themselves. They’re the pie maker, if you will, and they don’t have a plan of how I’m going to grow and how I’m going to live off of somebody else making the pies. Those are probably two of the biggest things. The other is that I realized early on that I’m not a good manager. I also realized that I surround myself with the right people that I’ll be better. Those were some takeaways. I think the other takeaways with running a business is that a lot of the people’s hearts aren’t into it as much as you, the owner. They’re more about, “How do I make enough money to feed my kids or to get them braces,” or whatever, as opposed to growing it. The motivation was not quite the same. But that’s okay. LR: As a woman owning your own business, what was that like? I don’t want to put words in your mouth, so I’m being very careful with what I say, but what were some of your experiences? MW: That’s a really great question because I realized early on that it was more difficult than I thought. I was the person that was dealing with physicians’ money. Most of the physicians are men, so it was difficult to get that one-on-one or one-on-one with their administrator and have them understand that I probably knew their business better than they did. You kind of brought a gentler side and then you try to go in for the kill in saying, “This is what I can do.” What I did with that is I changed my way of marketing. First of all, my marketing looked like I was a big business. When I started out I had three people. Me and two others. I made it look big. You know, nice marketing material, for the time. The other thing that I 15 did is I created a tool, that I would walk into the physician’s office and say, “Okay, here’s your accounts receivable, here’s what you’re collecting, here’s how many days it is,” those kind of things. I would lay it out and I would say, “You are leaving $20,000 on the table, you’re leaving $5,000, because of these things, this is how much money in a year period of time, that you have left on the table because no one’s following up, no one’s doing this, and I know that my company can do that.” If I can turn it to a financial gain for them, that’s usually how I got a lot of my clients. You had to kind of think like they do, which was different. It wasn’t just a good old boy, “Hey.” Because they don’t do a good old boy handshake with women. You have to prove it to them. So I guess there’s that proof again. But relationships and networking are probably key. One of the things that I’ve learned is that I can’t be someone else, either. “You like me for me or you don’t.” At the end of the day, I’m way okay with that, because I can’t be somebody I’m not. It’s hard to fake that. But that came with age, not because I’m a woman. ST: You mentioned networking and relationships, but you also do a lot of talking data. Would you say that was kind of crucial? MW: Both. I’m a data driven person, and part of the data driven person. . . . I’m being careful of what I say. Not that I don’t get emotional about things, but it’s a lot easier to make decisions based on data. I usually step back and say, “Okay, what’s the data telling me?” I’ll give you an example. We have a constituent that’s really irritated about one of the streets. He keeps telling us that cars are driving down the street too fast, so the city put out those little rubber things and the data 16 came back and said, “Not so.” Now there are times that people are going way too fast, but the average speed is like 28 miles an hour. It’s easy for me to have an emotional conversation with him, because he’s very passionate about it, but if I can go to him and say, “We’ve got to reevaluate. Maybe there’s a spot on the street or what can we do to fix this, because the average speed is not showing that.” It’s easier to make decisions if you have some sort of background in why that’s happening. Rightfully so, there’s people 50 miles an hour down the street and his kids are playing close to the street; I don’t blame him, but what can we do about those people, not just put up signs. I guess my whole point of that is it’s a lot easier to be less emotional, because I think women really do tend to get really passionate and really emotional about things, if you have that data. The other thing that—I truly believe this whether you’re a man or a woman—is that you have to have a compass. A lot of people, I call them squirrels. They’ll go down this path and then a constituent or someone goes, “Hey, you should do this,” and then go this way. Don’t get me wrong; I do that too every once in a while. But you have to have this internal compass that says, “This is what I believe.” Now that doesn’t mean that you can’t learn more and it doesn’t mean that you can’t understand more, but it’s like, “This is my internal compass and I really believe that this is the right way to go.” It has nothing to do with morals. It has nothing to with values. It has everything to do with the compass, so you don’t get off track. There are people that are so passionate about homelessness, right? That’s their compass; ,that’s their passion Yet, that’s not mine. Now that doesn’t mean I’m not compassionate 17 or passionate about fixing it . . . that’s not my compass, if you will. I leave it up to those people that are really passionate and I support them and I do all of that. ST: You mentioned constituents—this is kind of roundabout question—but I’m wondering, like politics and like community, did that kind of follow after the business, or is this like while you were . . . MW: No, growing up in my family, I was exposed to a lot of different things. I think that’s probably where I have a passion about politics. The biggest thing was, “Look, we are doing this for the future.” My great uncle, when he was governor, appointed somebody and he helped start the Arbor Day Foundation. My first job, actually, was licking envelopes for the Arbor Day Foundation, but I try not to say that too much. But that, “we are doing this for the future” —and probably this is where my compass comes in—“I am doing it for the future.” Now that doesn’t mean that I enjoy it along the way, but what can we do for the future? I always wanted to give back, and then I also always wanted to figure out if there was a better way to do it. That’s kind of where I come from. It started, I was on the student council in high school, and all of those things, so I always knew that I would give back somehow. LR: I do have a quick question if you don’t mind. You worked for the University of Utah, you had your own business, where were you living during that time? MW: Okay, at the University of Utah, I worked in Salt Lake, lived in Layton. At the time, with my partner, now wife, we came out here. We met in Lincoln, moved to Omaha and then moved out here. Kind of split the difference, her family was in California a lot, mine in Nebraska, so we kind of split the difference. Why not 18 come to Utah, right? So we were living in Layton. Great place to live, but there is no real sense of community. Sorry, Mayor. Layton has a hard time. In fact when we were living there, there’s not a true sense of downtown, a central core. A lot of our friends said, “Well, if you’re going to move, why don’t you move to Salt Lake?” And we had met the community up in Ogden, so we actually moved up to Ogden after being in Layton for a while. She worked at the hospital, Ogden Regional, so she had to be twenty minutes away from the hospital. We kind of did a radius and said, where is that, and picked Layton. LR: When did you move to Ogden? MW: Eight years ago. But, at the time, because my business was in Layton, I spent a lot of time at the Chamber. I talked about relationships and networking. I’m a true believer in being part of the community, so helping set up the marathon, helping be at the chamber events, did a lot of our time up here, so when the time came that we could move, “Let’s move up.” LR: What was the name of your business? MW: It was called “Essential Healthcare Solutions.” As we grew, you know, you’re paying a lot for rent, and I said, “Well, why don’t I just buy a building?” Fearless, right? So, second mortgaged my house to have the down payment, bought the building, and I still have the building. It’s over on University Parkway. It’s a cute little building. A realty company rents from me now, so it’s great. It’s nice. LR: I have a question. So moving to Utah, living in a smaller town like Layton, what was that like? Especially as time went on, you couldn’t get married and then the 19 law changed, but what was that like, living in a small town. Were you able to live openly or did you feel like you had to kind of hide? MW: There’s two parts to that. One, we were fairly open. Again, that transparency. That part wasn’t the hardest. Living in Layton, the hardest part for me had to do with I’m not LDS. We had a small little neighborhood community area, and they would put up a sign, “Don’t forget July Fourth breakfast.” Well, we didn’t know where that was because we were not part of the church. We knew where it was because you could see people walking to the neighborhood breakfast, but not being invited, not being included, and it had more to do with, I think, because we weren’t LDS. I think people probably were not fearful. It was at a time where they just probably hadn’t met a whole lot of gay people either, so it was probably a little harder for them to understand. But we felt like if we just talked about it, then it would be a lot better. One Fourth of July, we just took our coffee and went down and had breakfast with them and I think they found out we weren’t scary, so that helps. I think that it was probably more about not being LDS . . . but I don’t know. It could be both. I never asked. I felt like we were not included because we weren’t part of the church as opposed to the other way, but I wasn’t a kid growing up either. I was pretty comfortable with who I was. I don’t know if you were a kid growing up in that environment, how hard it would be. Hopefully the kids that did are healthy today. LR: Okay. You worked for a while in Layton. When you moved to Ogden—cause now you’re on the City Council—what prompted you to do that as opposed to not joining the City Council in Layton? 20 MW: To me, Ogden has a much different community sense. I have to be careful on how I say this, because I’m sure Layton does too. But Ogden’s a much more diverse community, and I was drawn to that, I was drawn to Weber State, I was drawn to the community at Weber, I was drawn to just the downtown community. That opportunity really never happened in Layton. I don’t know why. I mean, I was involved in Layton just as well as I was up here, so I don’t know. It just didn’t present itself. I don’t know, again, if that was LDS or the gay thing. But I’m really drawn to this community. When I first moved up in this neck of the woods, I always say, “You can take the girl out of Nebraska, you can’t take Nebraska out of the girl.” I’m surprised I don’t have Nebraska anything on right now because usually I do. I just kept saying, “Why is Weber not like that? Why can they not get the people at the football games?” If Nebraska loses the football game on Saturday, everyone wears black on Sunday. Then we start in on red again on Monday. Why is that not happening? Over the eight or nine years that I’ve been here, we’ve really worked on that. We’ve worked on the city and Weber State together, the town and gown kind of thing, and you’re starting to see more of that: flags out and wearing your Weber State shirts and feeling more proud of the school you’re going to. You’re seeing this shift and I love watching that happen, being part of that. I don’t want to say renaissance because I’m sure it was there before, but just seeing part of how Weber is actually growing up as well. So, much more drawn to the city of Ogden as far as a community of which I felt was very similar to Lincoln. I think that that’s probably more why I didn’t stay in Layton. 21 Going back, speaking of funny stories, so the guy that hired me to come out here and recruited me out here was a bishop in the church. He was this father-figure and he sits down with me one day and he goes, “I’m just really nervous that you’re not going to meet anybody.” I said, “Well, what do you mean, meet anybody? I’ll be fine. What do you mean? I’ll have friends.” “Well, I don’t know if there’s any other gay people.” I said, “Yeah. There are other gay people.” It was cute, he was trying to be careful in how he said it, but it was just really cute. I’m like, “Yeah. There will be other gay people.” LR: That is actually cute. MW: Yeah, it was. “I’ll be fine. I’ll figure it out.” What a difference of 22 years makes? LR: I’m kind of just going to inject a bunch of questions here. When the law finally changed and you were able to actually get married, how did that impact you? MW: That’s a very interesting question. In fact, we were just talking about that this weekend. We’ve been married twice, which was a very interesting. There was that eight month period in California where you could get married. We happened to be sitting, kayaking, on Pineview Lake. We were like “We should just go get married because we can.” I mean, it was more of a “We could.” When we got out to California and at the Justice Court, the clerk that was administrating our vows, it was weird. It was like, “Oh my gosh, we’re actually getting married.” Even though we’d been together for a long time, so it was weird. I didn’t expect the emotional side of that. It took me back, I guess. The second time was really fun too, because we were in Utah. At that time, they were still doing state by state, so we decided to get married in Utah 22 just to make sure that if it doesn’t go nationally that we would end up at least being married in the state that we lived in. Which was really weird because then if we got divorced, we’d have to get both divorced in Utah and in California. They didn’t quite know what to do at the county clerk’s office, cause they’re like, “You’ve already been married.” “It’s not recognized here.” So it was kind of a fun time. That was a spur of the moment, just to make sure that we got married. But the first time was really a lot more emotional than I thought. Whoa. Then the hard part is, I have a hard time calling her my wife. I shouldn’t, but I do. Because I think part of it is, I’ve grown up for a long time calling her my partner because we really weren’t married, so now it’s a shift. But if I don’t say wife, then people don’t realize that I’m married. You don’t have to put that in there. LR: You can take it out if you want, but I’m going to leave it in there. MW: Which is a very interesting, leading to that and that subject. When I ran for office, I was on the Board of Equality Utah. Board Chair, very involved, stepped off the Board when I moved up here, and was going through a political process that they endorse candidates. Of course, I’m going to be high up on their list, hopefully, yet I walked out of my interview with them and it was a very interesting perspective. In fact, I was told as I was walking out the door that I “might not be gay enough.” And I was like, “I’m not quite sure how that works.” The Salt Lake perspective is you need to show your family, you need to show your partner, you need to show your dog or your kids or whatever, in brochures, and I kept saying, “I can’t do that.” One, my wife doesn’t want to be in any brochure. And two, I want to stand on my own merits, so they were concerned that I wasn’t being out enough. Yet, 23 on my website, it said. Anybody asks, “Are you married?” “Yes,” I would tell them. But it was a very interesting conversation of “I want to run on my own merits not because I have a wife they’re going to have questions about.” So it was a very hard time to run at that point. LR: How did you balance that? How did you make it work for yourself? MW: I did my own thing and I said, “If I get your endorsement, great. If I don’t, I don’t.” Because I had to do it my way. Again it’s where I was coming from, and it wasn’t that I was trying to hide, it was that I was trying to be me. That’s a whole ‘nother psychology of which I won’t go into. But it’s hard. As a couple, people look at you as that’s how you think, as a couple, and I didn’t want that to happen. I didn’t want that to be, because we disagree a lot on different things and different politics, so I didn’t want to have it be that she’s answering for me kind of thing. So I had to establish some . . . It worked out. And we’re still together. LR: As you’re on the city council, what is that like today? As a woman being on the council, whereas in the past . . . I don’t know if it’s changed much. That’s the question: how much has it changed or has it not changed? MW: I don’t know that it’s changed as far as being a woman. We still have the same struggles. Like I said, when I was chair of the council, if I had a pause, it was quick for a man to jump in on that pause. I get mansplained a lot: “You just don’t understand.” It’s like, “No, I do understand. It’s just that you have a different point of view than I do.” I have been told that I have an agenda and it’s mostly because I am strong-willed, not necessarily because I have any agenda whatsoever. But the other hard part that I find, and this is just kind of on the outside, is that I’m a 24 hugger, so I have to say to other men, “Hey, I’m a hugger, let’s hug.” Obviously the #MeToo movement has really hindered some of that. How you interact with men is different. I may not hug them, but I put my hand on their shoulder or whatever and I think that they’re not used to that. I have to be careful sometimes. ST: You mentioned that sometimes you get the whole, “You don’t understand,” thing. Can you give me more context or like a story to that? I’m just curious to how that can come up. MW: I was talking to a colleague of mine, and I was talking to them about working with the state legislature. How I was approaching it was much different than what they were approaching it as, so I sat there and listened and listened because they were trying to tell me, “You have to do it this way, you just don’t understand how the legislature works. We have caucuses and we have this and we have that, and they go behind closed doors and there’s these leaders.” And I let him finish. And then I said, “I understand that, but this is how I think we should approach it.” So he was trying to explain to me that I didn’t understand something, and in reality I understood it, I was just approaching it differently. I get that a lot. “You just don’t understand how the politics work.” I probably know how the politics work because I have to study the politics in order to get things done, right? ST: That kind of amazed me, that “You don’t understand politics,” part of it, and you’re on the council. MW: Yeah, and part of it is they—“they” being men—look at you inferiorly. They automatically don’t look at you as an equal, so I think they have to explain it to at least get you up to their level. When in reality I’m passed their level and going, 25 “Okay, go ahead.” Most of the time, I’ll let them explain it to me. Sometimes I stop them, “I get it.” You pick your own battles is what you do. ST: Is there any other techniques, other than just letting them keep going and explaining stuff that you already know, that you find yourself kind of using to try and address that? MW: The technique I use a lot is to ask a question that I already know the answer to. To let them think that they are explaining it to me. I think that’s more of a negotiating side of me, saying, “Now tell me again, how many units we can have on this piece of acreage?” And I usually use the word “again,” so that they know that I know, but they don’t hear that part. “Tell me again why we do this,” or “Can you explain to me again why we?” I do that a lot because than it makes them feel like they’re telling me something. That’s a technique I use a lot. I don’t know if it’s right or wrong but that’s the one I use. LR: You’ve shared so much and I’m so very grateful. Is there any other story you can think of that you’d like to share before we wrap things up? MW: I don’t know, maybe because it’s recent, but, recently, my sister took a lot of my dad’s old slides and put them on a flash drive and I was looking through them and it’s a wonderful picture of my mom on the back of a boat with the U.S. flag waving in the back and she’s talking to good friend of hers. They’re just leaning in and I’ve termed it, “Getting stuff done.” She’s Secretary of Agriculture in California right now, so she went on to be great things too, but it was typical of my growing up of women leaning in, having those hard conversations, and I can think of many times where I would see women in a group, whether that was just 26 sitting around a table or at the kitchen counter, talking and that’s seared into my brain as far as women get stuff done. That image is just really typical of what I really look at as far as the stories I can tell. I can tell you the story of Sara Toliver getting stuff done; I can tell you the story of Jo Packer getting stuff done. But, the Kim Buttshardts of Ogden, Mikelle Weils, now the Kim Bowshers of the world in Ogden, and it’s because they just get it done. I could tell you story after story of a woman just picking up and getting it done. It’s not good or bad in reference to men. It’s just that it’s almost innate in women. I just look at it as how cool that is that it carries on. Those women are teaching their kids and those kids are just teaching their kids, so I have a lot of hope that everything will change. The state of the universe will change a little bit more. There’s stories of watching my grandmother get up as she was part of the—I can’t remember what they called it, Department of Aging in Nebraska—getting up and talking to a room full of women and men and talking about ageism. I mean, there’s just story after story I can tell you about. Running into Ruth Bader Ginsburg on an elevator in Washington D.C. LR: Now you have to tell that story. MW: My uncle, the U.S. Senator, takes us over to—not very many people get to go on to the floor of the Senate, and it was before 9/11, so still not many people get to go onto the Senate floor—so we’re walking through the halls, get to the elevator and of course everybody has security in Washington. So security guards get off and they’re making us get off the elevator. And we’re like, “Well, why are we getting off the elevator?” Next thing you know, she’s walking on and she’s like, 27 “Hey, how are you?” We just got on the elevator, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, that’s Ruth Bader Ginsburg! How cool is that?” LR: That’s pretty cool. ST: Okay, my last question before I ask the final one, is kind of like for an overview of what you’ve done in Ogden politics. I know you mentioned the Chamber, so I’m presuming that’s the Chamber of Commerce. Am I right? MW: Yes. ST: And then we have the Ogden City Council. Is there anything else that I’ve missed? MW: As far as what I’ve done, boards that I’ve been on? ST: Yeah, just kind of an overview. MW: A lot of the things, so I was on the Board Chair for Equality Utah. Now on the advisory council. I was involved with a really great organization at the time called the NCCJ, now called The Inclusion Center. I’ve been also on boards like the Outreach Utah, or the Ogden Outreach, which supports young gay kids. I’ve done a lot of those things. I’m currently on the Board of the Walker Institue. I think the thing that I’d really like to—I don’t know if I’m the most proud or not, but that I’m really proud about is . . . because I’m on the council, I get to involved in a lot of things. In that I get to speak in front of people. I just got done with Girls’ State, and I get to do things like Real Women Run, which is helping other women become candidates. I’m trying to start with kind of a northern side of trying to get women involved in politics a little earlier then, “Hey, it’s filing time, let’s sign up.” Kind of getting them through a process, getting them exposed. I’m 28 really passionate about getting women involved with politics, and I don’t mean that you have to be in politics, just being part of the process. Being part of the bigger picture of shaping that political future of maybe other candidates. I don’t know if I’m most proud of this, but I mean as far as I’m really thankful that I am on the council, bdcause I do get to get in front of people that I probably never would be able to do. Girls’ State’s one of my favorite things ever. They just really get great young kids. I’m happy to be on boards, but I think where I make a difference is being able to be out in front, talking to people. I got to go to a speaking engagement in Roy Schools. I go to a sixth grade class in Roy every year, and talk about what is it like to be on the council, what is it like to be a politician. It’s always fun to talk to the kids. That’s what I like to do. But I’m not scary as a politician either, because we’re in a scary time. There’s people that think, at a national level, that people have agendas, if you will, and part of it is trying to explain that you don’t have an agenda. That you are touchable, that you can talk to people, and that you can get things done. You know, people have real issues. They have potholes, and I know that sounds like a little thing, but they have potholes, they can’t get out of the driveway. The garbage didn’t get picked up. Those are real things, and I know, again, they’re little, but it means a lot when you get them fixed. ST: Alright, so our final question is how do you think women receiving the right to vote shaped or influence history, your community, and you personally? MW: Let me start by saying that women getting to vote was shaped because there were passionate women that wanted to organize, and when you have women 29 that organize, stuff gets done. Part of women getting to vote had a bigger meaning than just voting. It had a meaning of being able to organize, being able to work together as women, and to learn to work together as women, because that’s not always easy either. If you ever do any analysis of any of the voting habits, women vote more than men. Being able to do that, they were able to shape what they wanted, whether that was help with child care, whether that’s a grocery store in their neighborhood, whether that’s a playground not too far away. Again, that’s part of voting, but the other part of it’s organizing. I think those are two. I’ll just come from my side, from the local side. How it shapes local is that, again, I go back to the organizing. We had a group of women that organized because they wanted a playground in the northern end of Ogden. They organized, they petitioned, they got signatures—Now they didn’t have to do all this because we would have listened to them—They brought it to the council and then they were able to see the people that they voted for actually help change and vote for a specific project to get funded so that they could have a new playground. So... I don’t know if I’m answering your question so much as I’m telling you, it started with the organization and then the right to vote is putting in the people that you believe will be the best to represent you into that office. What’s weird is that I think women don’t vote a lot of times for other women. I don’t know why women don’t sometimes vote for other women—You go back to the 1900s and I think the community part has to do with organization. It had to do with organizing and then finding out you can have book clubs, and then that 30 became a community. I think it started with that organization of the vote. Not that they didn’t have that before, but I think they felt more empowered to help shape that community. Then they look at the community, after they’ve organized and voted for the right people on your town halls or your community, to organize and get the right . . . how you want to shape it. Personally how having the right to vote, or how that shaped me... I have to think about that. Personally, a couple of things. I think, one, having the right to vote makes me more aware of what’s going on. For me personally, it makes me more aware of who I vote for, so having that right gives me the right to make sure that I want that person there or not. As far as shaping me, it kind of conflicts you in a way because half the time people I vote for don’t get in. In part of it, I don’t know how to answer because voting for me, personally, is like the same thing as, “You don’t have a choice of not going to college.” You don’t have a choice of not voting. I’ve always just grown up, “You’re 18, you vote.” So I’m having a hard time trying to figure out how it’s affected me personally, other than I’m lucky to be elected to office. I guess what I would say personally, is there’s a lot of places that don’t have rights to vote. Hopefully now, we are able to shape our future. It’s hard to answer it because all I know is I have grown up that I vote, and I try to shape my values, or I try to vote for the people that will help shape my values. If I am an economic development person, and really like economic development, I will hopefully vote from a personal standpoint on my compass, of how to get that person into office. But I don’t know how to answer that. ST: I think you’ve answered it. Don’t worry. 31 LR: Well, thank you so much for your willingness to sit and talk and share. MW: The history of voting is, again, it’s kind of interesting. Again, if you’ve grown up, that’s all you’ve known. It’s like a fish doesn’t know water, right? That’s what I feel like. I’m a fish with no water, or doesn’t know water, ‘cause I’ve always grown up and voted. I’ve always been part of that process. People take it for granted. I’ll just say this…a couple years ago, three four years ago, when Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were battling it out. It really frustrated me watching the process here in Utah of the young kids that are like, “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I’m going to vote for the first time.” Just kind of the “Bernie” power and I really appreciated that they were going to vote for the first time, but they were old enough that they should have been voting long before that. I’m glad that it spurred something and I hope that they will continue to do that. From a personal standpoint, I want them to know that that process is there and that’s a right that they should do. It was frustrating for them when their candidate wasn’t endorsed, either. I’m sure they felt dejected and rejected. So. Politics.