Artifact Details

Title

Coleman, Caretha oral history

Catalog Number

102740139

Type

Moving image

Description

A mixed race (Japanese/Black) woman from Tokyo, raised in an all-white Massachusetts suburb, weaves a compelling story re development into a key Silicon Valley recruiter and HR director, after gaining key confidence as a stewardess for TWA.

Coleman describes joining HP, where she met and married Ken Coleman (see his interview). She left when their marriage blocked her career at HP, going to Spectra-Physics where she “found herself leading.” From there, she became HR at Software Publishing, and helped establish the virtually all-woman staff, which ran SPC for the decade she was there.

Coleman has strong words re diversity, and impediments for people of color, including the couple trying to buy a home in Los Altos Hills. Leaving SPC, she consulted for three years at Interval Research, and then joined the Board of Dignity Health, becoming Chair at one point, where she still serves. She credits Lloyd Dean as being the best CEO she’s known.

Date

2017-03-15

Participants

Coleman, Caretha, Interviewee

House, Charles, Interviewer

Publisher

Computer History Museum

Place of Publication

Mountain View, CA

Duration

01:13:26

Format

MOV

Subject

TWA; Hewlett-Packard; Spectra-Physics; Software Publishing; Diversity; Krause, Bill; Heyboer, Judy; Gibbons, Fred; Bedke, Janelle; Ostby, Signe; Cook, Scott; Carpenter, Valerie Cook; Wheeler, Diane; Murphy, Kathy Bailey; Liddle, David; Dean, Lloyd

Collection Title

CHM Oral History Collection

Credit