Rockford public schools get a bad rap.

What you look like. Whom you know. What you believe in.

Power isn’t about the hair, makeup or wardrobe, says Michelle Courier, 37.

When she was a military police officer with the U.S. Navy, Angela Tensley says, she had to be twice as manly as the men.

If you don’t go out on a limb, you’ll never reach the fruit, says Mary Swaab, inventor and CEO of Colorlab Custom Cosmetics.

She was only 5 when her mother left, leaving her to help raise a younger sister and two younger brothers on Chicago’s South Side.

Image is key for women in positions of power, says Kris Kieper, agreeing with Kathleen Kennedy Townsend’s keynote speech.

Part-time work, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is a job that’s 34 hours a week or less.

Five years ago, Gloria Cardenas Cudia’s run for Rockford mayor featured signs with “GLORIA” in big red letters. An intimate approach, perhaps, unless you know her. So many people do. And it was a reflection of how Cardenas Cudia ran her campaign personally. Our 2010 Rockford Woman of the Year has built relationships in Rockford for almost four decades.

This year’s finalists for Rockford Woman of the Year are a retired volunteer who is “everywhere,” a teacher and national artist, a local Special Olympics founder and scholarship namesake, a funeral director and grief-care expert, and a former mayoral candidate who has had her hands in just about every aspect of Rockford life.