News Release Date:
Tuesday, Jan 24, 2006

            WALLA WALLA, Wash.—  The ability to make good choices and the confidence to take occasional risks rank high on Paula Boggs’ recipe for success, she told a full house at Whitman’s inaugural Women, Leadership and Society Lecture.

            Boggs, who spoke Monday, Jan. 23, in Olin 130, is the executive vice president, general counsel and secretary at Starbucks Coffee Company. She presented the first in a series of Whitman lectures intended to address “my concerns and the concerns of others that despite three decades of upward mobility in American society, relatively few women occupy positions in senior leadership in politics, business or education,” said President George Bridges.

            “I’m really jazzed to kick off this lecture series,” said Boggs. “I’m excited to share in what you’re doing here at Whitman.”  Boggs, who founded the women’s running team at her alma mater Johns Hopkins, has enjoyed a 22-year career in which she has served as an army officer, an assistant U.S. attorney, a White House staff attorney, a private attorney and the staff director for the Pentagon’s Tailhook investigation. Her current position at Starbucks is her “dream job” said Boggs, and she arrived there by consistently asking “Why not me?” rather than “Why me?”

            Talent, she said, is not usually enough to make a woman or a man successful, but a combination of talent, a good support system, preparation, curiosity and imagination has helped her accomplish her goals. At Starbucks, adds Boggs, she has found a company that nurtures the human experience. In order to be truly successful, Boggs said, one needs to reach a balance between such factors as logic and emotion, and home and work.

            Along the route to her present success, Boggs said, she received a lot of mentoring, and she in turn volunteers her time to help others. “At the end of the day, I need to know I made a difference. Every day, we have the opportunity and the responsibility to give it another shot…I’m so awed by the opportunity I have and you have today.”

-30-

CONTACT: Lenel Parish, Whitman College News Service, (509) 527-5156

Email: parishlj@whitman.edu