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Margaret Custer Ford, MAS, Honored With PPAI Woman Of Achievement Award
By: Staff
Issue: 2010jul
Industry veteran Margaret “Margo” Custer Ford, MAS, was named the 2010 recipient of the PPAI Woman of Achievement Award last night at the opening reception of the PPAI Women’s Leadership Conference in Las Colinas, Texas.
“She forged new ground, and has become a catalyst for women in our industry,” said Melissa Hendrick, PPAI director of professional development and business media, during last night's presentation. “She has shown unparalleled commitment to our industry and PPAI. She is readily recognized as someone who has demonstrated her leadership, mentoring and commitment throughout her expansive, exhaustive and impressive career.”
Although Custer Ford could not attend the event, she was presented with the award earlier at her home in Portland, Oregon, by Marla Pak, senior account manager for BIC Graphic USA. Pak presented Custer Ford with a custom award created especially for the honor by Chicago supplier R.S. Owens & Co., Inc. (UPIC: RSOWENS).
Click here to hear her acceptance speech.
Custer Ford is the second recipient of the award given for the first time last year to Carol Aastad, MAS, who has since retired from Geiger.
“When I received the beautiful award from PPAI for Woman of Achievement, I was gratified and very, very pleased,” Custer Ford says. She started Portland, Oregon, distributor MARCO Ideas Unlimited (UPIC: MARCO) in 1959, at a time when women were not welcome in business.
“Borrowing money was very difficult,” she says. “I had to have a co-signer for my first note at the bank for $500.”
Custer Ford proudly adds that 15 years later when she moved the company from its original location in Medford, Oregon, to nearby Portland, she had a $1 million line of credit at the bank.
Another method she used to work in a male-dominated business world was to use just her initials, M.C., on her business correspondence.
“Distributors would think I was a man,” she says. “I had a lot of lines given to me that way.”
Partially retired, Custer Ford still comes in and writes for the office, says daughter Nancy Gudekunst, MAS, who bought the company from her mother in the 1990s.
“We’re extremely proud of her,” Gudekunst says.”I didn’t know there was another award for her to win.”
Custer Ford was elected to the PPAI Hall of Fame in 1994 and won multiple PPAI Golden Pyramid Awards, as well as silver and bronze awards. After an elected Association board member resigned, Ford served a two-year term on the Board of Directors Class of 1980; she was later elected to serve a four-year term with the Class of 1988.
She recommends that women in the business use the Small Business Administration’s SCORE program of volunteer executives to help with business needs. She also extends an offer to mentor any women in the industry by contacting her at mcf6@verizon.net.
Janelle Nevins, senior vice president at St. Louis, Missouri, distributor Summit Marketing (UPIC: summit), and Mary Ann Farmer, MAS, formerly CEO of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, supplier Magna-Tel (UPIC:MAGNATEL), were finalists in the competition.
Readers can read more about Custer Ford in the October issue of PPB.
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