Published: October 07, 2009 09:32 am      

YWCA kicks off ‘Women You Know’ series on Oct. 13

CLINTON — A new event series called “Women You Know, Women You’d Like to Meet” will kick off next week at the Clinton Community College Technology Center. Presented by the YWCA, “Women You Know, Women You’d Like to Meet” will welcome Ria Cortesio and Stefanie Brown to Clinton from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

The “Women You Know, Women You’d Like to Meet” series will invite women to Clinton to share their life stories three times during the year. The Tuesday event will feature two women with careers in professional baseball. They will discuss the challenges they have faced and how they have achieved success in their typically male-dominated careers.

Cortesio will talk about her experience being the only woman umpiring in professional baseball for the past 20 years. She has been the feature story in almost every town where she’s worked a game, but never understood the special attention.

“You don’t need any certain parts of the anatomy to see. Male, female, we’ve all got two eyes and assume they’re both working. It doesn’t affect ball, strike, safe, out, or foul,” said Cortesio. Cortesio is the first female umpire since Pam Postema in 1989, to umpire a Major League exhibition spring training game. She will share her experience umpiring that game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Chicago Cubs on March 29, 2007.

Brown will share her experience as the assistant general manager of the Quad-City River Bandits. From record-setting crowds to floods, she has been a key contributor in increasing game attendance by 56 percent and in helping to reinvigorate interest in baseball in the Quad-Cities.

Brown began as an intern at age 20 and “fell in love with the job.” She was the co-recipient of the Rawlings Executive of the Year award in 2008 in the Midwest League.

Students and groups are welcome to attend. The event is free to the public, but reservations are requested by calling the YWCA at 242-2110. For more information about the event, call YWCA Marketing Director Shannon Sander-Welzien.