Anderson's career orbits at Aerospace.

Margaret Anderson, CFO at Aerospace Corp., has worked within the system to become the highest-ranking woman at the government research firm

The turning point in Margaret Anderson's life occurred in 1972 when she was 32 and on a sailing trip from Vancouver to Hawaii on a 37-foot santana, a type of sailboat.

"We were in full sail and the spinnaker was up. We were rigged for light winds and I was at the helm when we suddenly hit a storm. It was a life-threatening situation. It was very scary with the boat being hit by waves from behind that reached two stories high. I was able to handle it though. I took the lead and didn't worry about it ... I got nervous when it was over," she says.

A few months later Anderson, who at the time was raising two children, decided to divorce her husband and strike out on her own. She soon got a job at El Segundo-based Aerospace Corp., where she is now vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer. She is the highest-ranking woman in the non-profit government research firm with 3,100 employees and 1994 revenues of $372.8 million.

The first thing that strikes a visitor about Anderson is her smile. It's infectious and comes easily, probably because she's received countless compliments about it over the years. Her smile has even prompted some people to encourage her to run for public office, a thought Anderson does not totally reject.

"Maybe at a future time," she says.

But Anderson's rise in the male-dominated world of defense and aerospace is more complex than a pretty smile. She credits her rise to luck - being around during a time when the women's movement began and laws changed - and her own drive.

To reach her position, she says she consciously went after jobs at Aerospace Corp. that gave her a wide range of experience. And she was not afraid to tell her superiors that she was interested in a certain position.

But it was before she joined Aerospace Corp. in 1973 that the groundwork was laid for her business career.

Anderson grew up in Washington state with one brother, a father who was in the construction business and a mother who was a nurse but stayed at home with the children. Anderson spend most of her early years in Wenatchee, Wash., where in high school she was a beauty queen, an honor student and involved in countless school, community and Catholic Church activities. In high school, she was voted the friendliest girl in school.

A high school counselor told her to get involved in computers and finance, advice she would follow for years to come.

Anderson spent almost two years at Washington State University before she married a "fun-loving Irishman" she had met while in high school. Her husband, whom she still talks about easily, was a counterintelligence spy for the government. The two had children quickly - a boy and a girl.

"Things were fine. - I was happy. This was in the 1960s and I was at home and working part time," she says.

Around 1970, when the children were starting to get a little older, Anderson began to change.

"We were moving all the time. My husband wasn't taking what I was doing seriously and I began to think I needed some stability."

She went on the sailing trip and says she learned about independence. She also earned a college degree.

When the divorce was final, Anderson took the children and became a single parent while beginning her career at the Aerospace Corp. She tried to buy a house in Culver City and ran right into sex discrimination.

"They wouldn't give me a loan with out a 30 percent down payment. I knew it was because I was a woman." After raising a stink, she got the loan and bought the house.

Around this time, the women's movement began and Anderson was in the front row.

"I was a woman's libber but I think, if you ask the people who were really active, they would say I wasn't," she says.

She says the difference between her and the more radical libbers, and the reason she succeeded at Aerospace, was that she worked "in the system."

"I wasn't outside trying to tear it down. I thought the best way to do it was by working with the system, not against it. That was the way I did it here and that's why I survived."

Throughout the 1970s, Anderson was active in countless organizations in and outside of work that were involved in women's issues. She also started moving up the corporate ladder after joining Aerospace as a computer program analyst.

Among the departments where she has worked are personnel, contracts, data processing and finance.

After earning an M.B.A., Anderson moved more into finance and management and became chief financial officer three years ago after she developed a computer model analyzing the effects of defense/aerospace downsizing on Aerospace Corp. In the past few years, Aerospace Corp. has shrunk significantly. Employment has dropped by 25 percent, as has the budget, which is based primarily on government contracts for defense/aerospace-related research work.

During recent government hearings, Anderson warned that if further cuts occur, core projects and personnel at Aerospace will be in jeopardy.

Anderson, who has been remarried for several years now, says she is no longer as active in women's issues as she once was. Her activities and personal experiences, she says, have played an important role in her Aerospace career, but she stops short of saying she was hurt or helped because of her gender.

"There have been disappointments but everybody has them. They happen for whatever reasons, so I can't say it's because I'm a woman. Just like I can't say good things have happened because I'm a woman."

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Margaret Anderson

Native of: Spokane, Wash.

Resident of: Torrance

Age: 54

Education: A.A., Boise College; B.A. in business administration, Seattle University; M.B.A., Pepperdine University 

Spouse: Robert Clark