There are nearly 8 million women-owned businesses in the U.S. as of 1996, generating nearly $2.3 trillion in sales.

Women-owned businesses employ one out of every four U.S. company workers - 18.5 million employees.

Employment in women-owned firms with 100 or more employees has expanded six times faster than all firms in the economy.

The top growth industries for women-owned businesses between 1987 and 1996 are: construction; wholesale trade; transportation/ communications; agribusiness; and manufacturing.

Women-owned firms are more likely to remain in business than the average U.S. firm is. Nearly 3/4 of women-owned firms in business in 1991 were still in business 3 years later, compared to 2/3 of all U.S. firms.

Women entrepreneurs are taking their firms into the global marketplace at the same rate as all U.S. business owners. As of 1992, 13% of women-owned firms were involved in international trade.

Nearly all (96%) of women-owned businesses use computers; the smaller businesses owned by women are more likely to use computers than all U.S. firms are.

Women entrepreneurs use technology to be responsive to customers, improve quality and to make their businesses more agile.

Home Office

Roughly half of the 13.7 million sole-proprietorships, partnerships, and subchapter S corporations covered in the 1987 Characteristics of Business Owners survey reported that they "operated from a private residence". Most businesses in this universe have no paid employees.

Facts on Women in Construction

Between 1994-1995, the number of women in construction increased six percent from 718,000 to 762,000. Here is a breakdown of those 762,000 women by employment sector:

• Technical, Sales and Administrative Support: 403,000 or 53 percent
• Managerial and Professional Specialty: 210,000 or 28 percent
• Precision, Production and Craft: 97,000 or 13 percent
• Operators, Fabricators and Laborers: 42,000 or 6 percent
• Service, Farming, Forestry and Fishing: 10,000 or 1 percent

Intent of OMWBE Programs

The Washington State Office of Minority and Women's Business Enterprises (OMWBE) administers our state's certification program, the intent of which is to maximize opportunities for minority and women's business enterprises to participate in public works projects and to provide goods and services to state agencies and educational institutions.

The Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994 establishes a five-percent government-wide procurement goal for women-owned businesses, providing a strong incentive to agencies to look for qualified women-owned businesses when filling contractual needs.

Computer Hints:

When working in Windows Explorer, you can open FIND very quickly by pressing F3. Find will open with the path of the currently selected folder in Look In. Change the path if necessary by typing in the new path. Or, click on Browse, locate the new path, and click OK. [This tip originally found on

AltaVista delivers free web translation service in Spanish, French, German, Portuguese and Italian. Visit: http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/ to translate your plain text OR web page address to any of the above listed languages. For Digital's full press release on this break-through service, please read: http://altavista.digital.com/av/content/pr120997.htm

For the first time, non-English speaking Web surfers can translate information on the predominantly English speaking Web in real time. The new free service also gives English-only Web surfers the ability to understand information in five of the world's most popular languages.

USING WINDOWS 95's LOCAL REBOOT

With Windows 95's local reboot feature, you can safely shut down a hung application without affecting other running applications. When an application locks up, press the [Ctrl][Alt][Del] key combination. When the Close Program dialog box appears, the hung application is usually highlighted and will have the phrase "Not Responding" next to it. If it is not already highlighted, select the application you want to close and click End Task. Usually, the application will close without further prompting, but some times a confirmation dialog box will appear. If this happens, click End Task again to close the hung program.

USING LONG FILENAMES IN THE ROOT DIRECTORY

Although you can exploit long filenames to describe the contents of your directories, you should be cautious about using them in your root directory. DOS imposes a limit of 512 entries in the root directory, and this is still true in Windows 95. [From Microsoft Windows Technology News - September 29, 1997]

BYPASSING THE STARTUP FOLDER

The following tip is presented by INSIDE MICROSOFT WINDOWS 95, a monthly publication of The Cobb Group. For a FREE issue, go to http://www.cobb.com/w95/cuvyeu.htm

If you want to quickly load Windows 95 without loading any of the programs in the Startup folder, type your password and click OK in the Welcome to Windows dialog box, then press and hold down the [Shift] key.

If you are on a network, type your password and click OK in the Enter Network Password dialog box, then press and hold down the [Shift] key.

If you're not logging into Windows 95 or a network, press and hold down the [Shift] key when you see the Windows 95 splash screen appear.

Another similar trick is, if you need to restart your computer, click Start -> Shut Down, select Restart the Computer, then hold down the Shift key when you click OK. This will cause a "quick" restart, where the computer just restarts WINDOWS, not the whole computer.

This also is useful if you have installed something and it says, "You must restart your computer. Restart now?" When it asks you to "Restart now?", say no, then click Start -> Shut Down, select Restart, and hold down the shift key. Faster restart. (Up to 30-45 seconds faster)

* Resolving Excel Auto Recalculation *

As you may have heard, a problem with Excel 97 can keep certain cells in a worksheet from automatically recalculating. Now there is a solution in the form of a patch available for download from http://www.microsoft.com/excel/recalc.htm

Recent Projects:

In recent months, McKay/Moore Consultants has estimated costs for two sports facilities, and is scheduled to begin estimating services on a third athletic complex within the next few weeks. Assisting us in this endeavor is Venne Beauchamp, who has estimated and managed a wide variety of projects over the last thirty-five years. Venne's experience has also been invaluable in cost control problem-solving for a local hygiene center renovation project.

Consultant John Williams, a principal of BTY Group, has just completed a schematic estimate of a seismic upgrade and partial reroofing project, and is currently providing assistance with mechanical and electrical estimating on a hospital remodel. We appreciate John's expertise and ongoing support.

McKay/Moore's Remote Secretary" has also been busy with various projects, from word-processing the usual resumes and reports to a current, more complicated project for a local author. We have "translated" the original draft manuscript from an older DOS word-processor to Word for Win95, and are in the final stages of proofreading and copy editing before submission to the publisher.

Our Web-Site

This newsletter will be published on the Web each quarter. If you wish to be notified when it is posted, include this request in an email message to

McKay/Moore's "Industry Links" page contains links to resources such as the AIA, Means, and Sweets, as well as to many business resources such as the DJC and CBD. Links to selected design and construction firm email addresses and web sites are also listed. If you have email or a web presence, and would like to be included on our Industry Links Page, please let me know. I will add your listing in our next update. Please feel free to add our link to your page as well.

Recent additions to our Links Pages:

Art Anderson Associates Architects and Engineers

Cardwell Thomas

Canadian Society of Landscape Architects

Kobayashi and Associates Landscape Architects

NW Nexus - Engineers

ZIP+4 Code Lookup

Seattle Weather

The "Foot-to-Meter" Conversion

Skiing? Mountain Pass Reports!

Washington State Office of Minority and Women's Business Enterprises

Women in Business Links

NAWIC

PlanetAEC

Editors Note

What is EIFS?

According to the EIFS Industry Members Association (EIMA), EIFS (Exterior Insulation and Finishing System) is defined as:

A non-load bearing exterior wall cladding system consisting of an insulation board, an adhesive and/or mechanical attachment of the insulation board to the substrate, and an integrally reinforced base coat on the face of the insulation board, a protective finish applied to the surface of the base coat and applicable accessories that interact to form an energy efficient exterior wall.

There are two types of EIFS: Class PB System and Class PM System. EIMA defines these two systems as follows:

Class PB System:

A class of EIFS where the base coat varies in thickness depending on the number of layers, or thickness of reinforcing. The thickness can range from a nominal 1/16" to 1/4" (1.6mm to 6.4mm). The reinforcing material is typically glass fiber mesh that is embedded in the base coat at the time of installation.

Class PM System:

A class of EIFS where the reinforcing material is typically glass fiber mesh that is applied over the insulation board and mechanically fastened to the substrate. The base coat is applied over the reinforcing mesh at a nominal thickness of 3/16" to 1/4" (4.8mm to 6.4mm) and contains fiber reinforcement.

Class PB Systems account for the majority (75%) of all EIFS installations in the United States.

EIFS is selected as a construction material primarily because of monetary considerations:

1.Material costs less than traditional three coat stucco; 2.Construction costs are reduced because the time of construction is reduced; 3.The additional insulation reduces long term costs of heating and cooling the structure; and 4.It is easier and less costly to add aesthetically pleasing architectural details.

See "Stucco vs. EIFS: Pros and Cons" by Frank E. Grimball at:http://www.planetaec.com/architects/archive/eifs.html

"Since World War II the design and construction industries have used cost saving technologies to provide products more economically. One such product is Exterior Insulation and Finishing System (EIFS). EIFS, known as synthetic or fake stucco, is used instead of the traditional three-coat stucco for the exterior of structures.

"EIFS was developed in Europe after World War II and was introduced into the United States in 1969 when Arthur A. Rady-Pentek, P.E., provided Frank Morsilli with a sample of EIFS. Morsilli later founded DRYVIT System, Inc. which then began to manufacture and market EIFS, modified to accommodate American construction practices. Its use in the United States increased substantially in the 1980s and 1990s and has now become controversial."

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