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.

When we started looking for Rockford women with busy schedules, we were deluged with possible sources. Who doesn’t know a woman whose hands — and days — are full? We raise our kids, care for relatives, work outside the home, work inside the home and still find time to volunteer. With the current economy, we often work second or part-time jobs while trying to prepare for another career. Even when we retire, the color-coded calendar stays full.

LaVonne Sheffield believes every step in her career path has paved the way to the place she wants to create her legacy. She worked in Detroit and Philadelphia. She led the Recovery School District in Louisiana, created to turn around failing schools. But she wants to be remembered for Rockford.

Women in the workplace is old news. We’ve been punching in, gloving up and getting the job done since World War II, when a generation of Rosie the Riveters filled in for soldiers who’d gone to war.

But our role in the workplace keeps growing as more women become managers and owners. Nearly 11 million privately owned companies are now majority-owned by women, according to the Center for Women’s Business Research in Washington.

“I’ve seen a significant swing to the female population, especially in business administration,” says Jeffrey Swanberg, who chairs that department at Rockford Career College, where he’s worked since 1972. The recent class is 75 percent female, as are all but two of the college’s department heads.

Janet Clark Holmgren grew up a tomboy, traipsing the then-empty fields in the Morsay Drive area of Rockford with neighborhood kids and, to the dismay of her mother, showing little interest in developing feminine wiles.

It’s a daily drama. It’s an emotional roller-coaster. On some days, it’s a full-blown hormonal storm. Ask any mom what it’s like to raise her teenage daughter, and you’re bound to hear some variation of the above.

Doors do get slammed. Tears will get shed. Stubborn silence often ensues.

But that’s a small price to pay for the chance to usher your girl into adulthood. Still, it’s not an easy task.

How do you nurture responsible, caring, self-confident young women in a world that idolizes Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears? With cell phones, text messaging and the far-reaching stretch of the Internet, how do you teach your child to be safe without scaring her to death?

Who will be Rockford Woman of the Year 2009? You decide.

Women are becoming grandmothers, not in their 60s and 70s, but in their 30s and 40s, and sometimes raise their own grandkids.

Grandmothers today like to take a hands-on approach to the role. Sometimes they even play the part of Mom.

If you’re female, you’ll probably be a caregiver at some time in your life. Certainly for your children, if you have them. Probably for your parents. Possibly for your spouse. And maybe for your grandchildren.