Norma Yaeger

Norma Yaeger

TOPIC-
Breaking Down the Walls{Book}

I sometimes wonder if today’s young women realize just how many opportunities they have – or if they realize that those same opportunities were not always open to women. Yes, by the time I came of age women certainly had the vote. But the social structures with which we dealt were as tight as the girdles we wore. I was born Norma Naomi Hason in the middle of the first half of the 20th century, and I became of age at the middle of that century, at a time when women aspired to marry, raise children, and spoil their grandchildren. Born, raised, and educated in New York City including at the City College of New York’s Bernard Baruch’s College of Business and The New York Institute of Finance, I wanted more. But, like most women of my generation, I married, had children, and deferred to my husband – until I didn’t. When it became clear to me, as I and my children went cold and hungry in a house in the Catskill Mountains of New York into which my husband had moved us, and that he would never really provide for us, I began to dream. And what I dreamt about was a life in which I could provide for my family; a life in which I could be financially independent of my spouse; of a job as a stockbroker. Not one to be satisfied with dreams, in 1962 I became the first woman to be enrolled in the Hornblower & Weeks training program for Stockbrokers. As a trainee, I demanded and got equal pay for equal work as well as the right to join my male trainees on the floor of the NY Stock Exchange – a formerly unheard of perk for a woman. As a Registered Representative, I was employed by Hornblower & Weeks and was the only woman on their Management Advisory Board. Later, because of my success, I was also employed by Bear Stearns & Co., and Drexel Burnham Lambert, Inc. After a divorce and remarriage to Lawrence Yaeger, a General Surgeon, I moved to California and continued my employment with Drexel Burnham Lambert until I opened my own firm, Yaeger Securities. During that time, I registered a Mutual Fund and started a Second Brokerage Firm, Yaeger Capital Markets. My numerous licenses include the New York Stock Exchange, National Association of Security Dealers, Chicago Board of Options, and the Commodity Exchange. I lectured throughout the United States to give advice to women starting on careers and investing. And I did all of this while raising five children, three of my own and two of my husband’s. With the sale of my brokerage firm in 1998, I retired and pursued yet another dream, traveling the world with my husband, Larry. I now live with Larry in California emailing and visiting often with my children and grandchildren, following the stock market with as much interest as ever, and encouraging women to break down the walls wherever they still exist. Breaking Down The Walls is my first book.

Date Recorded: 6/19/2013

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