Companies that have a large presence in Washington but are not headquartered here, such as Boeing, were not included in the P-I's data. However, Boeing Commercial Airplanes in Longacres had one of the higher ratios (35 percent) of women in top management, with six of its 17 senior executives being women. Private companies, such as outdoor gear giant REI, where Sally Jewell is chief executive, and non-profit organizations also were not included.

Pool of candidates

Many women traditionally put their careers on hold -- or discard them -- to raise children, while men continue to climb the corporate ladder. And because there are few female executives, there's also a small pool to choose from for board seats.

Companies eliminated many middle-management positions in the 1980s, reducing the opportunity for women to move up in the business, said Cate Goethals, a University of Washington business lecturer. Even in recent years, the number of executive positions in Fortune 500 companies has been reduced significantly, she said.

"There hasn't been a level playing field," said Xerox Chairwoman and Chief Executive Anne Mulcahy, who turned around the iconic Connecticut-based company.

Mulcahy, ranked by Fortune this year as the No. 2 most powerful woman to lead a publicly held company, behind PepsiCo's Indra Nooyi, said if companies truly want to see women advance they need to focus on hiring, retaining and developing women while creating a "family-friendly" environment that allows a balance for work and home issues.

"None of this happens passively," Mulcahy said. "You have to pay attention. You have to focus."

At Xerox, 22 percent of its 30,000 U.S. workers are called virtual employees who are allowed to work from home, an opportunity available to women and men.

"It doesn't matter where you are as long as you get your work done," Mulcahy said.

Many women, however, don't work in that type of environment. They tire of hitting the glass ceiling and leave for smaller, private firms, said Judy Rosener, a business professor at University of California-Irvine, who has published books and articles on women at work.

Rosener said it could take years or decades for women to reach the top of traditional large, publicly held companies, which she recommends female college graduates avoid.

"A lot of really sharp women are saying their opportunities are better with fast-growing (private) companies," she said.

Erin Fuller, executive director of the 8,000-member National Association of Women Business Owners, said women run nearly half of all privately held businesses.

In the 1970s, it was less than 10 percent, she said.

She said women are becoming more entrepreneurial because they can exercise control of a business, and it has become easier to get capital.

Fuller said it wasn't until the mid-1970s that federal legislation guaranteed that a woman could have a credit card in her own name, and it wasn't until 1988 that Congress passed legislation that made it illegal for banks to withhold loans from a woman unless she had a man co-sign.

Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz said many major corporations that want female executives on their boards are fighting for the same candidates.

"Ten years ago, public CEOs were on five or more boards. But today you would be hard-pressed to find public CEOs on three boards," Schultz said. "Every corporation in America is searching for the same board members. We are all targeting the same people."

But Catalyst, a New York-based national research organization that examines career advancement for women, said there are plenty of female candidates who can and are willing to move into executive positions or board seats.

Catalyst said women account for slightly more than half of all managerial and professional workers, and more than a third of Master of Business Administration recipients. The organization also said a lack of women in executive posts could hurt a company's bottom line.

In a 2005 Census of Fortune 500 companies, Catalyst found that companies with the highest percentage of female corporate officers experienced, on average, a 35 percent higher return on equity and a 34 percent higher total return to shareholders than those with the lowest percentage of female corporate officers.

"It's not just a nice thing to do," said Kara Helander, a vice president for Catalyst. "It's a smart business move."

The P-I did not measure return on equity or to shareholders in its survey. But the newspaper did find that the 73 Washington firms do slightly better by percentage in hiring more senior-level women than do Fortune 500 companies. Yet the state slightly trails those firms in the percentage of women on boards.

The largest publicly held company based in Washington with the most female senior executives is Starbucks, where 10 of the 33 executives, or 30 percent, are women.

Chief Executive Jim Donald said half of the 10 senior managers who report directly to him are women, and he attributed the Seattle-based coffee company's financial success and growth to having gender diversity.

"Women are great leaders. Women have more patience. They are more empathetic, and they are fantastic listeners," Donald said. "Quite honestly, they are used to handling many things at one time."

Donald believes that in time even more women will advance into the executive ranks at the world's largest coffee company. But he won't make promotions to meet a quota.

"I'm not going after a number," Donald said. "It's the best person getting the job. The trick is to have the talent. If you don't have the talent, you can't create the pool and the right person for the right job."

Microsoft, the biggest company by market value, has two women among its 21 senior executives and two women on its 10-member board. Among its more than 900 upper-level officials -- general manager positions and higher -- 11 percent are women, said Lou Gellos, a Microsoft spokesman.

"We are making strides in the hiring and development of women at the senior level," Gellos said. "To do that involves a whole broad range of activities, and one includes a strong development program we have in place already so women can move up."

In the past year, Gellos said, the number of female corporate vice presidents at Microsoft increased 36 percent.

Glass ceiling in place

While women make up nearly half the work force in Washington, there are only five female chief executive officers at the top publicly held companies.

But even at those five companies -- Safeco, Fisher Communications, drugstore.com, Columbia Banking System and Cascade Financial -- women are in the minority on their boards.

And in executive positions, only Seattle-based Fisher has women holding half its senior-level jobs. The other four businesses have few women in executive positions. Fisher owns or manages 19 television stations and nine radio stations in the Pacific Northwest.

Paula Rosput Reynolds, who declined to be interviewed, is one of the most highly visible as chief executive of Seattle-based insurer Safeco, which is the 10th-largest publicly held company in Washington with a $7 billion market value. Two of Safeco's 12 executives are women.

At Fortune 500 companies, there are 10 female chief executives, including Reynolds.

"Women still face a pervasive set of cultural barriers that very few men face," Catalyst's Helander said. "There's a lack of access to informal networks, a lack of role models and gender-based stereotypes."

Only one Washington company, drugstore.com, has a female chief executive who also serves as board chair. At 31 of the companies, the man who holds the chief executive job also is board chairman. Flow International of Kent is the only other company besides drugstore.com that has a female board chair.

"I do believe there is a glass ceiling, and it's something we need to work on," said Dawn Lepore, drugstore.com's chief executive.

Flow Chairwoman Kathy Munro said she believes some progress has been made, and she said companies began to look for more women directors after the 2002 passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Munro said because that federal legislation requires companies to have fewer insiders on its boards, there are more opportunities for women.

"I think there are more women on boards today than 10 years ago," said Munro, whose company develops ultrahigh-pressure water pumps. "But it doesn't surprise me that there are very few women chairing boards. There are not that many (women) directors."

Nationally, women hold 16 percent of the corporate officer jobs and nearly 15 percent of the board directorships at Fortune 500 companies, according to Catalyst.

'Pipeline is there'

Companies that have no or few women in executive positions say the ranks of female managers increase just below the top tier.

Seattle-based Getty Images, which creates and distributes visual images, said its executive management consists of nine men, but the company has 11 female vice presidents, or 27 percent among the 41.

Seattle-based Marchex, a technology search and media firm, said it has six male executives but also has six women (25 percent) among its 24 employees who hold the rank of vice president or higher.

Marchex spokesman Mark Peterson said the company is only three years old and all the top-level executives were company founders.

"We take pride in fostering a workplace where all people have room to grow," Peterson said.

At Costco Wholesale, which is fighting a lawsuit that alleges women are prevented from applying for higher-paying management positions, two of the 35 senior executives are women -- 6 percent. The percentage of women more than doubles at the vice president level or higher, where there are 18 women and 98 men, said Richard Galanti, chief financial officer.

But Blake Nordstrom, president of the upscale Seattle retail firm that bears his family's name, said his company still could improve.

Nordstrom said having women in five of the 18 top executive jobs and one-third of the company's board is not acceptable for a chain that caters primarily to women.

"The vast majority of our customers are women and that should be reflected in our employee base, our executive base and our board," Nordstrom said. "As we look to potentially expand the board, if we have another director or two, then one of the top criteria should be having a woman."

Nordstrom added that 72 percent of the total management within the chain is women.

"That gives us confidence and optimism that our executive team can continue to improve," Nordstrom said. "That means the pipeline is there."

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