Family Ties

As gaggles of giggling teens invade America's corporate corridors today, the cafeterias and conference rooms at Texas Instruments will remain silent and child-free -- because TI celebrates Take Our Daughters to Work Day not on April 26, with the rest of the country, but after the school year ends in June.

So why, then, is Allison Frantz at work today with her daddy, Gene Frantz?

For one thing, she's got a lot of work to do. As a systems engineer in TI's Internet Audio Group, Allison will spend the day writing code for MP3 players. For another, her father, who founded the same division and who holds a senior position in it, would expect her to be there -- not just today, but every day, just like the rest of the team. Plus, if Allison weren't at work, she and her dad would miss their regular afternoon coffee break, a ritual both Frantzes have come to relish.

"I'm proud to tell you that I work with my daughter every day," says Gene, 52, the paternal half of the only father-daughter engineering duo at the giant, international technology company.

The Frantz techies are a chatty pair, with a relationship so warm that their near constant proximity is viewed as a plus by both of them. In addition to working in the same division (with Allison a few ranks further down the org chart than Dad), they work down the hall from each other: He's in a big-boss type office, and she's in a cubicle farm. (Likewise, he scored the better parking space.)

Perks aside, title doesn't mean much to either Frantz. It's all about the work. Gene is a senior fellow at TI, where he's spent his entire 27-year career. He divides his time between the company's Imaging and Audio Groups, and is responsible for generating new business for both.

Allison, 24, joined the Internet Audio Group five months ago, after graduating from Texas A&M with a master's degree in electrical engineering. In separate interviews, Fast Company caught up with the father-daughter act to get their take on work and working -- a mere half dozen cubicles away from each other.

Why do we need a Take Our Daughters to Work Day? In other words, why aren't there more women engineers in general?

Gene: As a male-dominated industry, engineering is still doing things that make women and minorities uncomfortable. The profession is going to have to learn how to get over that if it wants to continue to recruit and retain top talent. As a white male, I've spent the last 20 years being sensitized to the fact that people like me are prejudiced. But in many cases, people are still ignorant. And it's the things we don't know that are really scary.

My biggest fear is that I'll unwittingly offend someone and she won't call me on it. Maybe she won't speak up because she figures that she can't change the ways things are, or she won't feel comfortable bringing it up, or she won't even know why a particular comment made her uncomfortable in the first place.

Allison is really good at telling me what's what. It's the old, "How well do you have to know someone before you can tell him that he has toilet paper on his shoe?" There's been huge progress in workplace communication between men and women since I started in this field, but we still have a long way to go.

Allison: I definitely think that there aren't enough women engineers, but I'm not sure why. Many women are just scared to enter the field. They think that they can't hack it.

I've worked with junior-high-school girls to get them interested in math and science. I'm also in a women's initiative group at TI. Our goal is simple: to get more women into the company. We're sending more female employees on recruiting events, and we're improving our female mentoring programs.

I'm fortunate that I've had such a strong mentoring network. First, my father has been a big supporter. I don't know if I would have pursued the same career if it weren't for him. Four years ago, when I started my first internship at the company, he steered me to women who he thought would be good mentors for me. They encouraged me to get my master's. Over the years, I've consulted with them about the work environment in general, asking them questions like, What's it like to work with a whole bunch of men? I've never felt awkward or belittled at TI, but I do feel like I have to work harder to prove that a woman can handle the work, especially because some people think that I only got the job because of my father. But my master's degree gives me credibility. People think, "Okay, don't mess with her. She knows what she's talking about." It shuts them up pretty quickly.

In the Internet age, there's a notion that the younger generation of workers is far more tech-savvy than their more senior colleagues. Is that the case with you two?