I come from a long line of strong women. We weren’t always recognized for it. The playing field wasn’t always fair. We weren’t always celebrated. But we’ve been quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, building, feeding, raising, organizing, creating, and trailblazing for generations.
My grandmother, Frances Cermak, the woman I was named for, immigrated alone from the Czech Republic in the early 1900s. She was grateful and brave, striking out on her own for the dream of America. She came through Ellis Island and eventually made her home in Lake George, Minnesota, where she married my grandfather and helped raise a family. But she didn’t stop there. She built a motel. She opened a gift shop. She planted potatoes. She fed her community and made things happen. She created a community.
She was the original Shenanigator in our line.
My mother, raised on that same Minnesota farm, spent her childhood picking those potatoes. But after high school, she set out for California, a bold move for a girl from the heartland. In Palo Alto, among the wives of Stanford professors, she stood out. A self-described Jack Pine Savage, she brought color and vitality everywhere she went. She didn’t just attend community events, she started them. She created school fairs, led Campfire Girl troops, dreamed up white elephant booths, and eventually, after returning to Minnesota, she founded The Forest Issue, a local newspaper and the Lake George Blueberry Festival – a beloved tradition still running strong today.
I grew up in the middle of all that energy, and I inherited every drop of that Shenanigator DNA. But my path wasn’t potatoes or parades. I was born and raised in Palo Alto in the 1950s/60s, right at the beginning of the computer industry. I leapt into the world of high-tech marketing and never looked back. For nearly five decades, I thrived in the heart of Silicon Valley – organizing, connecting, building. I helped shape the future. And I never once had to pick a potato.
Like my grandmother and mother before me, I built community. Only my tools were trade shows, customer summits, executive retreats, and user groups. I wasn’t a stay-at-home mom, rather I was a working mom, building a life, a company, and an industry. I was glue, connecting ideas and people and opportunities across the globe. Working hard as a woman in a man’s world. Things weren’t equal, they aren’t equal now, but they are better.
And then came my daughter.
My daughter grew up under the conference room table, attending client meetings before she could drive. She started working at my side as a teenager and launched her own career in high-tech marketing. She’s a pioneer in digital strategy, an early leader in SEO, data analytics, and modeling for growth. She’s worked for startups, Fortune 500s, and now brings her gifts to a Fortune 50 company.
And, she is more than a marketing wizard. She’s a rescuer — of dogs, cats, mules, and horses. She’s a deeply caring, wildly capable woman who is charting her own legacy while honoring all those who came before.
And now, there is her daughter. My granddaughter. A force in the making.
She is studying business and marketing in college, following in her mom’s and grandma’s footsteps, and dreaming of becoming a digital character developer for video games. She brings with her not only the analytical chops of three generations of tech-savvy women, but the artistic brilliance that her great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother carried in their bones.
She’s the future. And I wrote a little book for her when she turned 16, during COVID, when celebrations were quiet, about what her foremothers were doing at age 16. About how the girls in our family became the women we are today. I titled it “Remarkable Girls Who Became Exceptional Women.” Because that’s who we are.
That’s who she is becoming.
Our Journey Continues
From potato fields to high-tech boardrooms, from gift shops to digital storefronts, from Campfire Girls to cloud platforms — our journey as women has never stopped evolving.
We are builders. Shenanigators. Organizers. Visionaries. Matriarchs. Seeking an equal path for ourselves and for all the women in the world.
And I am so deeply grateful — for where we’ve been, for where we are, and for the brilliant paths yet to be walked by the women we raise, love, and cheer on.