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20 Years of Strength
Athena Award recognizes the contributions of women in business
Since the mid-1980s, 21 women have been honored with the Athena Award, which recognizes the “significant impact businesswomen make in their community.”It was 1982 when Martha Mertz became convinced that the role of women in business was being seriously overlooked.
Mertz, president of the Lansing, Michigan Regional Chamber of Commerce at the time, went straight to work in an effort to remedy that void. And that’s how the Athena Award was born.
Since that time, the Athena Award has inspired excellence in numerous career and personal endeavors. It honors men as well as women for professional excellence, community service and actively assisting women in their attainment of professional advancement and leadership skills.
In 1984, General Motors’ Oldsmobile Division promoted the award through its dealerships. In 1985, local Oldsmobile dealer Robert McGraw and his son, John, established the Athena affiliation with the Lancaster-Fairfield County Chamber of Commerce. Years later, when GM phased out the Oldsmobile division, the Robert D. McGraw family continued the Athena sponsorship.
“We feel this is one way to give back to the community that’s been so good to our family and to recognize those individuals who make Lancaster and Fairfield County a great place to live and work,” John McGraw says.
Jane Joos, owner and president of Ault-Metz-Joos Insurance in Lancaster, was the first local recipient of the award.
“The Athena Award recognizes the significant impact businesswomen make in their community,” Joos says. “It’s fitting recognition. To be the first was a quite an honor, given the achievements of so many local women through the years.”
The 21st recipient was announced in 2006, and a special banquet honored previous winners. And for the first time, the winner didn’t have advance notice she had won.
“It really caught me off guard,” says Nanciann Rosier, director of the Center for Adult Learning at Ohio University’s Lancaster Campus. “For me, it culminated many hours of work on behalf of the university and in the community. I felt my community was saying ‘thank you.’”
Each Athena Award winner receives a bronze and marble sculpture.
Story by Lisa R. Hooker
© Copyright 2007 Journal Communications Inc.
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