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114 AN T I OC H CO L L E G E C L A S S O F 19 6 5 5 0 t h A N N I V E R S A R Y B O O K A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z M U L H A U S E R include women at summit meet- ings when issues of war and peace were considered. This brought me and dozens of women to Geneva, Iceland, D.C. and Russia to insist that women become part of the ne- gotiating process. Both groups gave me access to work with peace and security groups and I convened various collaborative projects such as delegations to both GOP and Democratic political conventions to advocate for halting nuclear weap- ons production. CONSULTING WOMEN: In 1990 af- ter I had my own consulting business for two years, I was approached by friends who wanted to know how to start a business, how to set fees, how to market and even how to describe skills and experiences. I said that I was just making it up as I went along but that I’d be happy to meet and we could make it up together. Initially there were seven or eight of us who met monthly and it was another amazing support network in which we helped each other with market- ing messages, wrote each other into contracts and talked through prob- lem solving.The group grew organi- cally, but the men stopped coming. Eventually, we called ourselves Consulting Women, an amazing safe environment or community where we share information, admit there are things we do not know and help each other.And in D.C., information is power and sharing information is like sharing power, and that does not happen often. In any case, the group kept growing with meetings, usually around my conference room table, and it morphed to adapt to changing communications with the Internet. Now it is an active professional listserv that I manage for over 800 D.C. area self-employed women. Basic membership is free for the list- serv; full membership allows mem- bers to post their profiles on the Internet, a website I manage that we use for marketing our work and services. There are numerous sub- groups of this community such as neighborhood groups, coaches,writ- ers, fundraisers and the International ConsultingWomen which I convene. And in every case, the sub-network is a support group, responding to re- quests for information, collaborating and helping each other find clients, writing each other into contracts and offering each other training. COMMUNITY OFFICE SPACE: Early in my consulting business, I moved my office from my home to a cen- tral downtown location. I signed a lease for 3,000 square feet, much larger than I needed, with the vision of subleasing to other consultants and creating a community. I stayed in that office location for over 20 years until I moved my office back home. A serious bout of Lyme dis- ease and Bell’s palsy discouraged me from renewing the office lease.There were challenges managing this net- work with ever-changing subleases, but the spirit of sharing, collaborat- ing and mutual support created the community I was seeking! WOMEN’ S INFORMAT ION NET- WORK (WIN) : In early 1988, I was asked by the Dukakis Presidential campaign if I would go to Iowa.The campaign had many twenty-some- things and needed some grownups. I met and worked with an excep- tional young woman who was co- ordinating the Ames region as her first job out of college and we be- came lifelong friends. She and other young women who had worked in the campaign moved toWashington after the election and approached me for guidance on how to make Washington more welcoming to young, pro-choice, Democratic women. They said they had ex- pected more from the second gener- ation feminists (my age cohort) and did not find us helpful in opening doors for younger women. What emerged at a dinner I hosted with the eight young women and eight of my friends,wasWomen’s InformationNetwork—WIN,a power- ful network established to empower young women,create networking and mentoring opportunities and form networks (communities) specific to various careers and issues.WIN now sponsors “Women Opening Doors forWomen” dinner parties annually. I was asked to form and chair theWIN advisory council, and each year since 1994 the Karen Mulhauser Award is given to the Washington woman leader who has done the most that year to help young women. While leading national organi- Karen with Hillary Clinton in 2001 at the Women’s Equality Summit that she organized.