Top guns: they are sky-high achievers. Their objective: not to be the first black or the only woman, but to be the best--period. (Career Opportunities).

They are fighting fires and fighting wars, uncovering beauty and unearthing science. Their accomplishments reflect the powerful combination of proficiency and passion--with a little perspiration. Although we suspect that these women really do sweat, they do it ever so discretely. To the extent that their career choices are extraordinary, so, too, has been the level of their performance. And though they have faced racism and sexism, those obstacles were never the focus.

"If you get fixed on the ignorance of others then they win," offers neuroscientist Yasmin Hurd, Ph.D. "And then what do you have?"

The women featured here--a fighter pilot, a fire chief, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, a neuroscientist, and our nation's national security advisor--talk about drive, determination, and not just believing in your dreams, but living them. "The zero tolerance that I had for certain [negative] behaviors created a positive environment for me," concedes Fire Chief Rosemary R. Cloud. "My goal was to get them off of me, to create a boundary--a space where I could succeed--and that's what I did."

SHAWNA ROCHELLE NG-A-QUI
U.S. Air Force Fighter Pilot

CAREER AT A GLANCE

AGE: 26

SALARY: Base pay of $24,000 (lieutenant)--$144,000 (four-star general), plus additional monetary allowances based on the assignment.

GOALS: "I'm starting the upgrade to a two-ship flight lead, and want to eventually become a four-ship flight lead and then become an instructor to teach all positions."

CHALLENGES: "Handling a three-dimensional environment and having to deal with weather and changing factors in your mission, particularly in a volatile situation where you never know what the other person is going to do."

MARITAL STATUS: Single

"IT'S A THRILL," SAYS CAPT. NG-A-QUI (pronounced nick-a-key) of her first operational assignment in Sept. 2000 at the Misawa Air Base in Misawa, Japan, and of flying the F-16 Fighting Falcon.

"I hit the fourth grade, and for no particular reason, I knew I wanted to fly fighters and be a pilot for the Air Force," explains Ng-A-Qui, whose last name has Chinese origins. Both her parents are originally from Guyana. Ng-A-Qui grew up in Parker, Colorado.

The youngest of four children, Ng-A-Qui had no previous exposure to military life. Joining the Civil Air Patrol (a civilian auxiliary of the Air Force) in high school introduced her to basic aerospace training and education. Majoring in engineering, she attended the very competitive Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and graduated in 1998. Then it was off to pilot training at Laughlin Air Force Base in Del Rio, Texas, where instructions included academics and simulator training. "It was a pretty intense year," she says.

Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals, a three-month program where pilots learn to employ a jet as a weapon, is the next and most-advanced phase. "Then it was off to Luke [Air Force Base in Phoenix] to begin fighter training," she explains.

Ng-A-Qui's first combat mission was Operation Northern Watch--enforcing the no-fly zone over Northern Iraq in 2001, before the Sept. 11 attacks. "It's pretty shocking the first time you realize that people are actually shooting at you," she says. "But it's nothing that I wasn't prepared for." Besides, Ng-A-Qui shoots back--using a high-speed antiradiation missile, among her choices of ammunition. She is the first female pilot to fly a combat mission for Misawa's 35th Fighter Wing.

"When it comes to a career, I feel like I've got it all. It's fun and exciting. I protect the best country in the world and fight for freedom. It's such an honor and I enjoy it. What more can I ask for?"

ROSEMARY R. CLOUD
Fire Chief

CAREER AT A GLANCE

AGE: 48

SALARY: $100,O00-plus

PROMOTIONS AND APPOINTMENTS ORDER: Firefighter, driver, lieutenant, captain, battalion chief, assistant chief, deputy chief, fire chief.

GOAL: To provide more awareness of career opportunities in the fire department for women and minorities.

BIGGEST OBSTACLE: "Overcoming and accepting that I will never be accepted by some in this profession."

MARITAL STATUS: Divorced, one daughter, one granddaughter

"I CAN GET OFF THE TRUCK," RESPONDED FIRE Chief Rosemary R. Cloud to a colleague and good friend who was very supportive of her early years in the Atlanta Fire Department. She is the first and only African American woman to hold this position. "He didn't know what to do when I first started. When we pulled up to a fire scene, he would run around the other side and help me off the truck," she says. If only all her colleagues had been so helpful.

After a failed marriage and an unfulfilling job as a legal assistant, Cloud decided to become a firefighter in 1980. It was a prime opportunity because the city of Atlanta was being sued for discriminatory practices in its fire department.

Cloud passed the exam. "I thought I could go in and in two or three years run the department," she recalls. It took her 10 years, however, to receive her first promotion to the position of driver." `I don't even know why you're here.' That's what my mind told me."

While battling self-doubt, she also had to deal with hostility toward her ambitions in a historically white, male-dominated profession. "Others have already been here and they have cousins, uncles, and other relatives in the department," she says. "They already know that this is a viable career. We come in here looking for a job. Only recently do we now have [African American] fathers and sons in the department."

Five months after passing the driver's exam, Cloud was promoted to lieutenant, testing No. 4 out of 300 candidates. One year later, in 1994, she ranked No. 1 on the captain's exam. Every position above captain is by appointment. She rose to the level of assistant chief for the Atlanta Fire Department. Early this year, Cloud was appointed fire chief of East Point, Georgia. "It feels like I'm standing at the free throw line with a second or two left in the game," offers Cloud. "I've made it many times and I know I've got all the support here for me to make it. My steps are ordered by God."

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, Ph.D.
U.S. National Security Advisor

CAREER AT A GLANCE

Age: 48

Salary: $100,O00-plus

Challenge: "The United States, with its tremendous assets, has the opportunity to help the rise of democratic societies that respect their people. I must think about that every day because it is easy to get caught up in policy minutia, but this is a historic time in the spread of liberty.

Goal: To eventually return to academia

Marital Status: Single

"WHEN I WAS A GRADUATE STUDENT, I WAS IN Russia and the room we were staying in had roaches. I went out to the monitor, and in what I thought was my very best Russian, I said we have bugs. What I really said was that we have lice, so the woman began instructing me in how to get rid of body lice." That, Condoleezza Rice recalls with amusement, was her most embarrassing international experience.

She has made many trips to Russia since then, communicating quite effectively--not on her behalf, but on the nation's. From 1989 to 1991 she served under President George Bush as director and then senior director of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council. She also worked as assistant to the president for National Security Affairs, a position she holds under the current president, George W.

Entering the eighth grade at age 11, Rice, who was born in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, was an exceptional student. But a high-pressure position in politics is far from Rice's original goal of being a concert pianist.

"I ended up a failed piano major," she relates. She became fascinated with Russia, and was encouraged to pursue a major in Russian political science and history by her mentor Jeff Korbel, father of former Secretary of State Madeline K. Albright.

She has authored several books on Eastern Europe and Soviet politics, and before her present position, she became the first woman, non-white, and the youngest to serve as Stanford University's provost in 1993.

Despite such a stellar career path, Rice admits that she's never made long-range goals.

"I am not a great planner," Rice explains. "I've always just taken on the challenges that came along and done the best I could. It is a wonderful thing to work with this president. The challenges are enormous and so are the opportunities."

DR. EMILY F. POLLARD
Plastic Surgeon

CAREER AT A GLANCE

AGE: 44

SALARY: $80,000-$100,O00-plus

GOAL: To achieve a better balance between her professional and personal life, including community service and leisure activities such as traveling and gardening.

BIGGEST CHALLENGE: "Balancing the costs of delivering quality care with rising expenses (i.e. malpractice premiums) and falling insurance premiums."

TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS: "I used to take a Polaroid, but now I take a digital picture to give patients a better idea of what can and cannot be done surgically."

MARITAL STATUS: Married, no children

"WHAT CRACKS ME UP ARE THE OLDER GENtlemen. You can just see the smile creeping across their faces," muses Dr. Emily F. Pollard. "One guy ... you could tell it was on the tip of his tongue: `What is a little girl like you going to do to me.' I just started laughing and said, `You don't even have to say it.' We both started laughing, and he said, `You know what? If you've been able to compete with the boys all along then you must be pretty good," Pollard recounts. She's actually a little better than that. Out of approximately 6,000 board-certified plastic surgeons, there are roughly 150 African Americans. Thirty, including Pollard, are black women.

She has maintained a private practice for more than 11 years (first in Indianapolis, then Philadelphia) after completing her residency in plastic surgery in 1991. Ninety percent of her patients are women, 75% are referred by previous patients, and she's never had a malpractice suit.

Born in Milwaukee, Pollard comes from a family of doctors and originally dreamt of a career in pharmacy. While attending Pharmacy School at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, she decided she wanted a more hands-on approach to medicine. During her third year of clerkship at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, she became interested in surgery.

Her work is divided into two areas: reconstructive surgery and cosmetic surgery. Pollard offers a number of procedures, including liposuction; breast augmentation, reduction, and reconstruction; full face-lifts; Botox Cosmetic and fat injections, as well as skincare procedures such as acid peels.

One of the challenges she's faced is marketing her business with the integrity she brings to the practice. "The 11 years of training--four years of medical school and seven years of surgical instruction--does not prepare you to run a business. So in addition to keeping up with my surgical skills by attending seminars, I've had to attend seminars on how to run a business."

YASMIN L. HURD, Ph.D.
Neuroscientist

CAREER AT A GLANCE

AGE: 39

SALARY: $100,O00-plus

GOAL: To return to New York and land a professorship at a top university.

MISCONCEPTIONS: "Being a scientist is not just about having a high IQ. You have to be able to think and have a vision. It's about being innovative."

LATEST PROJECT: Received a grant to study the brain development of children born to parents who take drugs.

Marital Status: Single

"I USED TO CAPTURE ANTS AND TRY AND reattach their legs," laughs Yasmin L. Hurd, Ph.D. about her early academic interest in an area not often popular with girls. But as a child, science captivated her, and she hoped to become a doctor or a teacher. She's become both.

Hurd is a neuroscientist at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, where she is also the director of graduate studies in the department of clinical neuroscience, psychiatry section. Her area of expertise is the brain, focusing on drug addiction and psychiatric disorders. "I love the brain," she explains. "It's so complex and we understand so little about it." She travels internationally presenting her findings and has been published in leading scientific medical journals.

Born in Jamaica, West Indies, and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Hurd learned early on that her journey would be a difficult one. In one of her honors classes, she had a good friend who was white and whom she outperformed academically. "We had the same guidance counselor," she asserts. "He tried to persuade me to attend community college. He urged my friend to apply to a four-year university."

A graduate of Binghamton University, State University of New York, with a combined major in psychology and biochemistry, Hurd was urged by an esteemed scientist to finish her graduate work at Karolinska. Although Hurd harbored concerns of how she might be received, "They didn't care about my race at all. They expected me to be the best because I was American."

Hurd returned to the States in 1990 for post-doctoral work at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, where she now sits on the board for grant approval. Upon completion of her studies, she accepted a position at Karolinska. That was in 1993. Today, as a director and professor, she does less lab work. Her responsibilities include reading, writing papers, and grant writing. "I love getting my hands wet, but as you get higher, you have a staff that works in the lab. It's great being a senior scientist because of the level of accomplishment, but I prefer to be in the lab any day."