Women in Business Award winners span tech to tacos

When Cynthia Harriss gave the keynote address at last year’s Women in Business awards luncheon, she called the winners “individuals who will serve us as role models.”

This year, she’s one of them.

Harriss was one of six honorees at the Orange County Business Journal’s 7th annual Women in Business Awards luncheon on Wednesday attended by about 900 people at the Hyatt Regency Irvine.

In the past year, Harriss, the 49-year-old president of the Disneyland Resort, has overseen the opening of Walt Disney Co.’s California Adventure theme park, the Grand Californian Hotel and Downtown Disney. Combined, it was the largest single development in Disney history.

At the same time, Harriss had to keep attention focused on the original Disneyland to shore up its role as the central element in Disney’s Anaheim empire.

To staff Disney’s expansion, Harriss also headed up the largest hiring drive undertaken at Disneyland,an effort that added more than 8,000 “cast members” to the company’s payroll. That hiring binge brought the total employee count at the Disneyland Resort to more than 20,000 at peak (despite about 400 recent layoffs), the most in the county and more than the entire population of Canton, Ill., where Harriss was born.

Despite a rainy opening for California Adventure and news-making accidents and mishaps at the resort, Harriss still calls herself the “luckiest person alive.” She said she’s “thrilled” to have the chance to lead the Disneyland Resort,a place she and her three sisters only dreamed of visiting as children growing up in the Midwest.

Harriss began her career with specialty retailer Paul Harris Stores Inc. (no relation) selling apparel. She rose through the ranks to become senior vice president of stores for the Indianapolis-based chain. And that caught the attention of Paul Pressler, then president of Disney Stores and now chairman of Disney’s Parks and Resorts division.

Pressler recruited Harriss to the Disney Stores, where she spent five years helping the retail operation increase its numbers from 140 to 460 stores in North America.

In 1997, Harriss joined Disneyland as vice president of theme park operations and merchandise. When Pressler was promoted to president of parks and resorts in 1999, she was named executive vice president of the resort, responsible for overall management and the long-term growth of all park and hotel operations.

Harriss said she hasn’t faced any particular challenges as a woman in business that are different from those anyone else has faced. She said her biggest challenge has probably been “working in a male environment and still keeping your own personality.”

Harriss says she tries to spend time in the parks at least a few times a week, if not every day. During the company’s massive recruiting effort she went to every job fair,which at one point meant weekly visits. She also tried each ride at California Adventure, attended countless meetings about details of the expansion and appeared at numerous speaking engagements both before and after the new park opened.

In January, she received the Tree of Life Award from the Jewish National Fund at a ceremony that raised about $250,000 to help alleviate a water crisis in Israel.

Some people contend that Internet sites and media attention make her the most-recognized Disneyland official since Walt Disney. Her own infectious enthusiasm for co-workers and visitors alike probably doesn’t hurt, either.

Harriss says she has “great affection” for cast members and says meeting a wide variety of people is her favorite part of the job.

Bill Ross, senior vice president of public affairs for Disneyland, says Harriss has “more best friends than anyone I know.”

Harriss accepts the credit for accomplishments, but unfailingly points to the cast members around her for Disneyland’s perceived successes. In particular, she cites the extra effort put out by front-line workers,like the 1,000 hours donated to community service by employees during a period largely devoted to pre-opening work for the new park, and the $1 million raised by charity events at pre-opening activities.

What Harriss doesn’t tell you about is her own contributions to community activities.

Richard Stein, executive director of the Laguna Playhouse, has seen those contributions first-hand. He says Harriss, who lives in Laguna Beach and is on the board of the playhouse, is different from corporate leaders who participate in arts organizations simply to enhance the image of their companies. Stein said Harriss simply loves the theater.

In the past year, she arranged donations to the theater to help fund a school program and served on the capital campaign organizing committee (for a playhouse expansion).

“She doesn’t miss a single show here,” Stein said. “I think the only place she feels happier to be than the happiest place on earth is the Laguna Playhouse.”

,Sandi Cain

Sandi Spivey



Senior human resources director,



Taco Bell Corp.

Sandi Spivey got her first taste for Taco Bell as a 16-year-old high school student working as a cashier in one of the chain’s first 100 locations.

“I couldn’t stand my mom’s cooking,” Spivey said. “She decided to cook liver once a week. I couldn’t stand the smell. So I got a job.”

That was 32 years ago. Decades later, Spivey is back at Taco Bell,this time as a wife, mother of two and senior human resources leader. As Taco Bell battles a sales slump, she’s overseen about $30 million in cost savings and enhanced productivity this year alone.

“She is a true leader and tireless employee advocate,” said Spivey’s boss Frank Tucker, vice president of human resources at Irvine-based Taco Bell, a unit of Louisville, Ky.-based Tricon Global Restaurants Inc.

In 1995, Spivey was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a relapse in 1998. At that time, she was diagnosed with metastic breast cancer of the bone, which has a bleak prognosis.

When Spivey learned of the relapse, she was undergoing chemotherapy and studying to take a test for an advanced degree in human resources. She said she wondered if she should even bother.

“I decided I should just go for it because the worst thing that could happen is I would live and I could use my professional designation in the future,” Spivey said. “That’s kind of the attitude I’ve taken the whole time I need to just keep moving ahead.”

Spivey joined the Mexican fast-food chain in 1993 after putting in several years at other companies in the food service industry, including Tricon’s KFC Corp., Advantica Restaurant Group Inc.’s Denny’s and CKE Restaurants Inc.’s Carl’s Jr., where she started her career in human resources in 1976.

After a few years, she moved to KFC, where she said she gained field-training experience, which she then took to Tricon sister company Taco Bell in 1993.

Spivey has sought to share her skills. She has been president and served on the board of the Council of Hotel Restaurant Trainers, a group of about 200 trainers from the U.S. and Canada.

Besides being a great way to network, Spivey says the experience bolstered her management skills and gave her a pulse on what other companies were doing in human resources training.

Spivey also is active in raising money for breast cancer research. Last year she raised more than $15,000 on the Avon 3-Day Breast Cancer Crusade, a 60-mile walk from Santa Barbara to Malibu. She also serves on the board of Y-ME Orange County Breast Cancer Organization and counsels other women with breast cancer for a national hotline council.

“Knowing that things may not be good for me, I want to make sure it will be good for people in the future,” Spivey said

Spivey said she goes to the doctor every three months for what she calls a “three-month horizon.” Her health is stable, but she is uncertain about the future. But, she said, “Instead of sitting back, I’ve decided to be proactive.”

Spivey’s positive attitude and professionalism has inspired others, including Ellen Thompson of PricewaterhouseCoopers’s Irvine office, who worked with Spivey at Taco Bell and called her “my hero.”

In the meantime, Spivey continues her push at Taco Bell. Last week she started conducting national training workshops for company and franchise locations to help reduce the number of employee turnovers.

“I plan to stay alive,” Spivey said with a smile. “And I would also like to run the field human resource function for Taco Bell. I really like working with the people who work in the restaurants.”

,Jennifer Bellantonio

ANDREA KLEIN



Chief executive officer,



Rand Technology Inc.

Andrea Klein started honing her business skills as a child, when she would come home with all the other kids’ allowances.

“I was this maverick child,” Klein said. “Washing dogs for money. Singing in front of the Christmas tree, charging people 50 cents to watch me. I would sell all these things. It wasn’t because of the money. It never has been. I just love hawking stuff.”

Making calls from her kitchen table nearly a decade ago, it may not have seemed to Klein that her Rand Technology Inc. would become what it is today: a company with $300 million in annual sales and business across the world.

Klein has pushed Irvine-based Rand,affectionately named for her favorite author and philosopher Ayn Rand,and its 60 workers to become a key electronic components procurement company for computer makers. Rand counts some of the largest names in the technology world among its customers.

After quitting a job at another company where she closed 90% of total sales, Klein set out on her own by getting some unsecured loans from friends. Approaching her business from the rank-and-file sales side, Klein said she learned the intricacies of finance and accounting as she went along.

According to those who work with her, Klein was a quick study.

“It’s hard to take someone who knows about sales and teach them finance,” said Scott Schiffer of accounting firm Kieckhafer Schiffer