CONTRACT SQUEEZE: Gender-based preferences for awarding government...

CONTRACT SQUEEZE: Gender-based preferences for awarding government contracts have been scaled back by Gov. Pete Wilson. Some female business owners in the Valley worry “the old-boys network will be back,” said Valerie Jenkins, owner of Escrow Plus in Burbank and head of a regional group of women in construction. White-collar businesses such as hers won’t be affected, she predicts, but “the women who are really going to suffer are in the trades.”

JOB WEB: The International Network of Women in Technology just set up shop in Sherman Oaks. The new group is setting up a nationwide database for employers seeking women with technical skills. . . . “Technology has been a neglected frontier of the women’s movement,” says the network’s Julie Lubbering.

FILLING HIS SHOES: The women of the Sawin family never thought they’d own a business, let alone in the masculine world of machine tools. But when Mary Sawin’s husband died, she and her three daughters--Joan Hoppock, Karen Boyle and Kathleen Durbin (above)--took over his North Hollywood firm. Today, $10-million-a-year General Industrial Tool is a scarce item--a firm in which all the top execs are women. Male ownership is still assumed, said Boyle. “I get mail addressed to Mr. Karen Boyle.”

NEW BLOOD: For clues to the future, look at enrollment in the business school at CSUN. Dean William Hosek says that undergraduate women now outnumber men. . . . Surveys of CSUN alumni show that, where entry-level salaries for female grads once lagged behind males’, the gap has nearly closed.

THE FEW: Still, women in top posts remain few and far between. Nearly all major public companies in the Valley are run by males. An exception is Authentic Fitness, whose CEO is Linda Wachner, the only female chief executive of a Fortune 500 company.