Letter: Older women make excellent employees

Newsday's "Executive pay" list was a real eye-opener ["Business, Dec. 2]. Only perhaps a dozen of 319 listed were women.

As a single mother of three, my experience was that once I was free of parental responsibility, my enthusiasm, work ethic and varied experience made my hiring at age 56 by a national company extremely satisfying and successful. I outsold all other reps in the first year and remained in the top 10 for 15 years until leaving at age 69.

In 1997, finding that one job took nine months, 130 resumes and applications, three job fairs, lots of record-keeping and refusal to accept age discrimination. Persistence and hard work always trumped anything else. The manager who hired me was promoted as a result of my productivity.

The average age of my colleagues was 35. Lesson for employers: Given the same resume, hire single moms of a certain age who now have to do financial catch-up for the next 15 years.