About the Book
When There Is No Wind, Row tells the story about the remarkable career path Paula N. Singer traveled on her way to achieving her dream of becoming a lawyer. On that journey, social and cultural norms of the day forced her to make many detours - "tacking" in sailing terms - to other careers before continuing on her course to become a lawyer. During the 50-year span of her careers, Singer became an active participant in the computer revolution, the women's rights movement and the globalization of the economy.
Social and cultural barriers were high when Singer began her journey in the 1960s. Women were supposed to become wives and mothers not lawyers. She faced financial barriers as well. Singer tells about growing up poor in the 1950s in Kennebunk, Maine. By the time she graduated from high school, she had lived in eight different places in town. She graduated first in her class, but scholarship awards and a student loan with savings from her summer jobs didn't cover her first-year college costs. She left for college not knowing how she would make it through financially after receiving a pep talk from her history teacher about working out her finances a semester at a time. She tells stories about how she did that while married and supporting her widowed mother by her junior year.
With law school thwarted by the lack of financial aid for women for professional schools and with no financial aid awarded to her for graduate school, Singer began her journey with a job search in Boston in 1966. Singer's stories are a vivid reminder of how far women have progressed since then when want ads were segregated by "Male/Female," all the jobs with good career opportunities were under "Male" and companies refused to interview women for those jobs. Singer describes how she got interviews for good jobs through an employment agent who failed to disclose she was female. She arrived for her first interview, for executive assistant to the founder and president of a major company, only to be told, he "refuses to interview a woman." She had the second scheduled interview at an insurance company after a seven-hour wait. She finally landed a job as computer programmer even though she didn't know what a computer was. Her qualification for the job - she could play bridge! Singer describes learning how to program the UNIVAC III, an early business computer, with no computer science courses and the only debugging tool her deductive reasoning.
Using stories and conversations, Singer takes us through her move back to Maine, birth of a daughter, and continuation of her computer career, overcoming barriers to become her employer's first female systems analyst. Divorced and supporting her daughter and mother, she left for law school when student aid for women became available after passage of Title IX of the Civil Rights Act in 1972. She married again while in law school and gave birth to another daughter after a move back to the Boston area. Singer describes what it was like for a lawyer with her unusual "credentials" - female, mid-30s, married, a mother, a public school education and a prior career - trying to break into the legal profession in Boston. With barriers too high to overcome, she tacked to a unique job with the consulting firm, Arthur D. Little, Inc. supporting the company's international personnel and projects at the outset of economic globalization. At age 40, she finally began practicing law, building up an international tax practice well before fax, email and the Internet. But her stories don't end there. At age 50, she parlayed her tax, immigration and computer experience to found and operate a successful tax software company with her husband.
Included throughout are Singer's recollections of, and connections to, historical events and profiles of pioneering women.
About the Author :
Paula N. Singer was a member of the Greater Boston legal community for 35 years. Singer recounts stories about her early years growing up poor in Kennebunk and the zig zag course she followed on her 50-year career journey to becoming a lawyer in her memoir, When There Is No Wind, Row. She describes how she became successful in a man's world-in a computer career when there were no computer science courses; as an international tax lawyer when there was no fax, email or Internet; and as owner/operator, with her husband, of a software company without any outside investors. Before writing her memoir, Singer authored more than 80 published articles about taxes. Her articles appeared in tax journals and in journals published by trade organizations, including the Massachusetts Bar Association, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the American Payroll Association, and the National Association of Tax Professionals. 20 of her articles appeared in Tax Notes International (TNI), published by Tax Analysts. Singer was one of 48 contributors-one of only three women-to their 2010 book, 40 Years of Change, One Constant: Tax Analysts. Singer authored 11 tax guidebooks and more than 50 e-newsletter articles published by Windstar Publishing, Inc. (now owned by Thomson Reuters). International Aspects of Individual U.S. Tax Returns received a Bronze medal from Axiom Business Book Awards in 2008. In 2004, Windstar published Singer's book, A Simple, More Efficient Tax Collection System for America. Her articles about tax reform appeared in the Christian Science Monitor and CSM's online business journal, and in Tax Analysts' journals, Tax Notes and TNI, and their online World Tax Daily. She was one of 32 expert contributors-one of five women-to their 2009 publication, Toward Tax Reform: Recommendations for President Obama's Task Force. Her two co-authored law review articles on international tax reform proposals for individual taxation are available on the Social Science Research Network. Singer now lives in Maine with her husband, Gary. Steve Hrehovik is both an editor and a writer. He edits memoirs, business manuals and newsletters and is author of a memoir, Rebel Without A Clue - A Way-Off Broadway Memoir. In addition, he has written more than 700 articles for newspapers, magazines and company bulletins. Among his writing credits: co-author of a movie script, 27-Down, a mystery, produced by an independent film company; writer/producer of a television series Bruce McToose - Intrepid Traveler shown on the Maine Public Broadcasting Network and Portland's Channel 5; writer/producer/director of the musical revue Round 'Bout Maine; ghost writer for a spy thriller; and writer of press releases, marketing material and advertising copy for radio, print and television commercials. In addition to his writing career, Hrehovcik is an award-winning artist/illustrator. He works in Pen & Ink, acrylics and pastel, plus computer graphics. His subjects include portraits, homes and commercial buildings, equestrian and pets, book illustrations and caricatures. He and his wife live in Kennebunk, Maine.
