Women and minorities GLass Ceiling Women and minorities wield little power at N.C. corporations GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) - White men overwhelmingly control the boards of directors of North Carolina's 50 largest public companies despite gains by women and minorities in other areas of corporations. Some high-profile businesses have no minority or female representation on their boards, including Old Dominion Freight Line, Piedmont Natural Gas, RF Micro Devices, Speedway Motorsports, Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Guilford Mills and Triad Guaranty, the News & Record of Greensboro found. One company, PPD Inc. of Wilmington, did not respond to repeated requests for information about minority board membership. Minorities hold 5.3 percent of board seats at the state's largest companies. They account for 28 percent of the state's population and a quarter of the work force. Women - 51 percent of the population and 46 percent of the work force - comprise 10.1 percent of board membership. Nationally, women hold about 10 percent of 7,500 board seats at the country's 1,500 largest companies listed by Standard & Poors, while minorities hold 8.8 percent, according to 2002 research by the Investor Responsibility Research Center in Washington. Corporate boards oversee that a corporation is well-managed by hiring, rewarding and firing executives who run the company. Board members also determine whether shareholders collect dividends and how much. ’Board membership is a public trust," said Dr. Arthur King, dean of the School of Business and Economics at Winston-Salem State University. ’If this is a public trust ... it is in the public interest to have a board that represents the public broadly." At Charlotte-based Bank of America, seven of 17 board members - or 41.2 percent - are either female or minority. The company seeks board members with business experience who also represent different racial, ethnic and gender viewpoints, spokeswoman Eloise Hale said. ’Our board represents our customer base," Hale said. By recruiting minorities and women to a board, ’you bring your customer to the table." North Carolina companies have increased their board diversity in the last decade. A 1992 News & Record survey found that women held 4.3 percent of board seats at the state's 50 largest companies, while minorities had just 1.8 percent. Companies increasingly will need a deeper understanding of different cultures and ethnic backgrounds to succeed and benefit by making board membership more expansive, said Sue Cole, president of U.S. TrustCo. of North Carolina and the sole female board member at Unifi in Greensboro and Martin Marietta Materials in Raleigh. ’In almost every case, a company is going to have a diverse employment pool," she said. ’They're probably going to have a diverse client or customer profile, and certainly their suppliers and vendors are typically going to be diverse. ’I think companies are definitely trying to diversify their boards by gender, race, geography and different types

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