52% of companieses in washington d.c. a virginia have no women on their board. more women on the board can actually help the bottom line accordining to statistics. they outperformed the competition in every different meure by at least 40% but are enoughomen ready for the boardroom? denise hart and vicki warker are with the leadership foundry. ladies welcome. two people co-wrote a book and found statistical evidence that found it is just d business to not include women. they say men sometimes take too many risks and women are more risk-averse. what gives ladies? why are we not sitting o these boards? >> i think what happens is most men have men as friends, and most women have women as friends. they will tend to overwhelmingly look for another man. >> women do not have overall as a group they years of experience that men have, so why wouldn't a board want to pick people with experience? >> i think you need diversity on a board. is not like the are womomen that do not h have those skills, but men do not know them as their bodiuddies. >> i found about this -- i found out about this effort from two women, a vice president here at albrht communications. they constantly in the wk outside of their field constantly knowing everyone. is that part of the problem? " i think there is an issue of networking and -- >> i think there's an issue of networking with the right people. you have to really connect to the people that are on boards that know about open board seats. >> the leadership foundry was started by women in technology. you are literally training them how to serve on a board. how do you do that? >> we contaed the national assosociation of corporate directors to do the training. >> give me an examplele. i sit on the board at the university of oklahoma. i did not realize there were other skills that i needed that you had to bring to serve on the board. >> most boards will look for someone who has some experience running a large budget financial acumen, and many want attorneys that have some legal acumen and understand the reregulations and so forth. >> what can theyey learn from the leadership foundry th teaches them how to use those skills for board rooms? >> being othe board is very different from managing. on the board, you are an adviser and you have a duty of care to the shareholders which is different from being a manager or an executive.e. there are specific parts of the training that lk about regulations and a lot of the training talks about how board members interact at the meeting and socially. >> it is going to be almost an all female show today. why is this area not better at having women on a board? " i think women do not act -- >> i think women do not act or to people they y plan on serving on the board. >> i think that is one of the things the leadership foundry requires. you have toet out there and make your voice is heard. ladies an alysis shows there are a lot of reasons why it is bad for business if there are not more women out there saying what needs to happen in the business world. thank you for joining us on the "washington business report." >> welcome back. what happens when you are a small business trying to finish a job on your conststruction project? that is what happened to contractors win funding for the faa was caught off during the dispute. corinthian contractors, the company that built a million- dollar center for thehe faa in warrenton. hugo moreira is a business unit leader a at corinthian contractors. you said in the end for you all it was not a big deal because you have stood job mostly done. a little annoying for congress not to have this figured out? >> it was a little frustrati for us. the job was pretty much done. we had a few items to finish. we had a lot o subcontractors lined up to do the work and we had to calall them up and say that they had to wait. the problem now is it is hard to get those crews that were lined up because it is the summer season. >> do you have any deadlines in the contract that you will end up losing money on because of the work? >> no, because it is very minor work. >> you passed through this one but you do a lot of work for other government projects. any lessons learned? >> for us, no. fortunately, for us, we have a lot of contracts with the navy small contracts with the navy, it keeps us pretty busy. so for us, it has not been too crazy. >> you said you were in charge of smack. >> small multiple work construction contracts. >> talk about being a small business with big jobs for the faa. w do you go about getting those awards? >> we had a previous relationship with the faa. we put it out to bid. we got the project. this was a very big project for us. >> what do small businesses need to do to get those relationships and then maintain them? >> i think it was staying in touch. we also put out a very good product. with government work, the most important thing is to answer all the questions associated and then put a good team together that can to their job and give the client a good product. >> is it business growing for you all or is it taking a dip? >> it is maintaining. being a pa of the smacc program, we are looking at several projects for the navy. >> where do you see the potential for growth in this economy? >> i think if congress comes around stimulus for the upgrade of roadwork, utilities bridges infrfrastructure upgrades >>-- that is where i think the growth will be for this area. >> hugo moreira from corinthian contraractors thank you so much for joining us today. stick with us. the roundtables next. [ female announcer ] welcome to busch gardens williamsburg where d.c. goes to get away. maybe it's because washington d.c. loves the legendary coasters. or that your entire family will have fun, even the little ones. it could be that water uountry usa has more of the waves, slides and rides everyone wants. so plan your getaway and come play. you never know who you'll run into. get started at buschgardens.com/dc. >> we have discussed a terrible, horrible no good a bad week. no matter, you do not have to follow his list to know it has been a lousy week for the econy pending here to break it down -- baara lang, president and ceo of the d.c. chamber of commerce and laura meckler from "the wall street journal." we have plenty of women representing us here to date. barbara, let me start with you. big news from wal-mart this week. you said it is a very big deal. >> it is a big deal. they are going to train about 2000 to 2500 district residents for retail jobs and customer service jobs in parership with the city, the community college, and with the community foundation. this is a really great initiative. >> wal-mart wants to open three to four stores in the district. it does make us look favorably. whose idea was this? >> i really do not know how that came up. i think walmart because wal-mart has been looking at the district as a great place for retail for quite a while. >> you are not worried about complaints about wes? >> i think some of t kits overblown quite frankly. they have b been a good corporarate citizen for us. they pay their dues on time. think this will be very good. days are not just training for wal-mart jobs. they are training for other retail jobs and other customer service positions in d.c. >> laura meckler we are hoping there will be new jobs to train for. to president says he has a plan but we cannot see it -- the president says he has a plan but we cannot see it until he gets back from his vacation. >> i think it is likely to include some incentive to get employers to hire. potentially some tax incentives to encourage hiring. he has talked a lot about infrastructure. he has a modest infrastructure proposal on theable now. those are some of the things being talked aut. >> i was surprised to hear that if you go back and look at the numbers, only 7% of the original stimulus package went t to infrastructure. are they going to get a second whack at it? >> it is a very questionable proposition. we are in a very anti-spending mood. you have a lot of republicans in congress that are really averse to any sort of spending, saying that it just has to stop. > barbara lang you work with a lot of republicans. where do you fall on this? >> i think some stimulus may be necessary, but i would say that we have to do a better job of managing the money and projects. all the hype before was this was going to go towards shovel-ready projects. the reality is that it is not what happened. i tnk some stimulus would b be helpful, but i think it is more stable public policy. businessesike predictability. en things keep changing all the time, businesses pullback because they do not knoww what else is going to happen. >> the last guest said they could not finish the project that they had. laura meckler why now for the white house? where has the jobs program pen all along? if it is purely for politics, why not keep your job by staying in town a not going to martrtha's vineyard? " i think t presidentas been consumed from these negotiations. there has been nothing else talked about in washingn. when tt wrapped up at the beginning of august, that is when they tried to turn their attention to jobs. that is whatt people are really woworried about. it is a huge drag on the president and the country. so i think they have been very eager to c change the subject to jobs spending they still are going to have competition from the deficit conversation that is still going on on capitol hill. i think most people e will tell you that putting a big proposal out in august usually is not a good idea. a lot of people are on vacation. a lot of peoeople are not in town and the congress is out of session so it might make more sense to do it after labor day. >> he keeps saying whyy should i cancel my vacation if there is nobody there to work with? >> i have to say barbara i talked to a lot of voters about their wallets. it did not sit well with either that the president headed off r a vacation a mara's vineyard. >> i think the president deserves a vacation. he does look pretty beat up. he does needoo get away. at i do question is the wisdom of being in martha's vineyard. i thihink it sends a message that i am not quite so sure e when you look at the atlta a jobs fair that the congressional black caucus had. thsands of people. when you look at the one in d.c. a week or so ago almost 5000 people. >> it iheartbreaking because i do not see anyone coming out of there with jobs. >> i think politically, that did not do him well. >> we have seen the numbers. george bush had three times as many vacation days as president obama at this point. i am from oklahoma. to us, it did not look like a very fun vacation. we went to hershey park this summer. why are they not being more sensitive about this issusue? >> i think it will get a pass on this even though there is a lot of talking about it now. and i think it is more of a personal decision. >> i think sasha and malia would have more of a fun time at hershey park. >> president bush owned a large ranch, a beautiful house in crawford. from a reporter point of view, i am not sure martha's vineyard is notthat much fun. >> barbara lang, you know there is this ongoing conversation, and i am agnostic on 8. republicans say tax cuts will create jobs. where do you stand on that? >> i agree with her. think you have to do that because that is the way you stimulate businesses. a large portion of businesses are hoarding cash. they can hire local ridents if they see some stability there. i think the tax cuts would help, not hurt. president obama thinks this is something republicans can get behind and do. >> we will see. ladies we thank you for your station -- staycation. our number of the week, 6.15. we will explain aftfter the break. 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[ male announcer ] get to a better state. >> our number of thehe week, $6.15. that may be the price for stockholders to switch to fitch. the company offered to pay "the situation" not to wear their clothes. cnn money reportrted a drop could have come fromm out look comments that the c company made. does because u think a bunch of overly tan kids wi big hair and big mouse appear too tacky to wear your clothes you may want to let them wear whatever they want. thank you for joining us. we hope to see you back next week.