Person of the Week: Helen O'Bannon

Person of the Week: Helen O'Bannon: "Helen O'Bannon
Week of May 7, 2001

Helen Bohen O'Bannon, Wellesley class of 1961, is a fine example of the women who fought to expand women's sphere in the 1970s.

O'Bannon did not start out to change the world. Born in Ridgewood, New Jersey, in 1939, Helen Bohen majored in economics at Wellesley. While getting a master's degree at Stanford, Bohen met and married George O'Bannon, a political science student. After gaining his master’s degree, George O'Bannon took a job in Washington, DC. Helen, a homemaker, worked part-time as an economic researcher and analyst for several government agencies. After two years as associate director of the Peace Corps in Afghanistan, George O'Bannon moved his family to Pittsburgh. While he served as director of international student services at the University of Pittsburgh, Helen taught economics at Robert Morris College.

In 1972 O'Bannon learned that her mother was dying of cancer. "I realized," she later said, "that I was very much dependent upon George as a provider, that even though I had my own career it was very much second to what he was doing, and I realized that anything could happen to him at any time."

Trying to figure out how to be more self-sufficient, O'Bannon started looking for a career path and applied for securities jobs. She met unabashed discrimination, most notably at Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith. One of the questions on the entrance exam for their broker trainee program was "When you fight with your wife, which of you usually wins?" Another asked, "When you meet a woman, what interests you the most about her?" The choices included "her beauty" and "her intellect." O'Bannon chose "intellect," not the correct choice, "beauty." Her rejection letter said in part, "Dear Mr. O'Bannon: We're sorry we can't take more young men like you." Incensed at this shabby and patently discriminatory treatment of women, O'Bannon decided to sue, prompting a class-action law suit. Although Merrill Lynch successfully used delaying tactics for several years, in 1976 the courts decided in her favor. Merrill Lynch was assessed a judgment of nearly $4 million, most of it restitution to women who had been denied sales jobs and other positions. Perhaps more importantly, the decision prompted other brokerage firms to treat women more equitably.

While waiting for the court's decision, O'Bannon prepared an economics text, Money and Banking: Theory, Policy, and Institutions (Harper and Row, 1975). She took doctoral courses at the University of Pittsburgh School of Business. And in 1973 O'Bannon began a three-year term as an associate dean at the Carnegie Institute, the engineering school of Carnegie-Mellon University, where she was responsible for budget and financial affairs. She strove to make the university – and the engineering profession in general – more accessible to women.

In December 1975 O'Bannon was named a member of Pennsylvania's Public Utility Commission. Although consumer and environmental groups had supported her appointment, O'Bannon said she did not feel she was an advocate for any one point of view. In addition to regulating gas, electric power, and telephone companies, the Public Utility Commission monitored over 4300 transportation companies.

A change in administration did not end O’Bannon’s public service. In 1979 O’Bannon became Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Public Welfare, responsible for the management of one of the state’s largest agencies. The Department of Public Welfare controlled income-maintenance and medical-assistance programs, institutional and community programs for the mentally ill and mentally retarded, social-service programs for children and families, and programs for the disabled. O’Bannon had a special sympathy for those under her care. When she was nine, the insurance company her father had worked for – at which he worked his way from office boy to vice president – declared bankruptcy. Since he did not find other steady employment, and her mother was confined to their home with multiple sclerosis, the family had lived from one Social Security check to the next.

After O'Bannon become Secretary of Public Welfare, she and her family moved to Harrisburg. George O'Bannon became a dealer in oriental rugs, a passion he had developed while they were in Afghanistan in the late 1960s. The O'Bannons practiced what they called a "syncopated internal-external parent system," in which one parent was most available to the children, and the other had an outside job. Categorizing her life as "a random walk through careers," Helen O'Bannon acknowledged that it would not have been possible without the support of her husband and friends.

In 1983 O’Bannon returned to academia, becoming vice president of the University of Pennsylvania, the first woman to hold this position. President Sheldon Hackney called her "a risk taker who had exceptional management skills." "Helen could analyze and grasp issues with astounding speed," he said. "She was never deterred by the challenges, stepping in where others fear to tread. On top of that, she had a wonderful sense of humor." She established the university’s first internal auditing system, a capital-budgeting process, and a facilities-management system.

Helen O‘Bannon remained a loyal Wellesley alumna. She received the Alumnae Achievement Award in 1980. And from 1982 to 1985 she served as President of the Alumnae Association.

O’Bannon was diagnosed with cancer shortly after she became vice president at the University of Pennsylvania. She continued to work until shortly before her death on October 19, 1988. She was survived by her husband, George, and her four sons -- Patrick, Colin, Casey and Sean. The Class of 1961 established a Wellesley scholarship fund in her honor.

"There's a piece of paper that I always carry around with me that defines success," Helen O'Bannon once said. "It's a quotation from Harry Emerson Fosdick. 'To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to endure the betrayal of false friends; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you lived. This is to have succeeded.'"

Written by Wilma Slaight"