Paula D. Hughes*

Paula Hughes was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1931. As she grew up, she sold secondhand articles from a sidewalk stand to pay for voice lessons. She babysat to earn money for clothes.

Married at age 17, she soon became pregnant. Divorced by age 20, Hughes realized her secretarial salary would not be enough to support herself and her daughter, so she took a sales job with Brown & Bigelow selling corporate advertising items. Of Brown & Bigelow's 2,400 employees, Hughes was the only woman on the sales force and had become the company's top salesperson by the time she left the company eight years later.

During this time, she had become interested in the stock market. In 1962, Hughes became a registered broker with Shields & Company. Later she became vice president of Thomson McKinnon Securities, Inc., and earned the title "First Lady of Wall Street." She contributed to innumerable charities, donating her time, talent, and resources.