Dawn Trudeau went to work for Microsoft in 1984. After a year in the IT area, she applied for an opening in marketing. She really wanted that job.

She didn’t get it.

Worse, her manager shunner her because she had sought a job elsewhere in the company. What was she to do?

“I bought myself a PC,” she said, and then spent the next year getting qualified about the ins and outs of that aspect of the computer industry.

A year later, a similar job opened up, again in marketing.

“Because I had studied, I got the job,” Trudeau said.

The lesson?

“If you have a goal, figure out what you have to do to prepare yourself for it,” she told members of the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club on Friday, July 17.

Trudeau spoke to the club about “Dreaming Big – Life’s Lessons on How to Achieve Your Goals Despite Obstacles and Upsets.”

Trudeau has followed her advice ever since. Today, she is one of four owners of the Seattle Storm women’s professional basketball team.

In retrospect, Trudeau said her problem the first time she sought a promotion was obvious, describing herself then as the type of person who was “determined to catch a ball if it was going to hit the floor.”

The problem, she noted, is that as desirable as that trait was, it wasn’t what she was being evaluated on.

“Know what you’re being evaluated on and do that, even if other things aren’t done,” she said.

In the then new computer industry, Trudeau said, most employees were men and women often were undermined.

She knew she couldn’t out-code them, but she did know that she was a good manager – she knew what customers wanted.

When one of her projects – Access – shipped, it sold 1 million copies in the first month. When bugs popped up the program – as they always do with new products – she was quick to get them fixed and shipped to the customers without any additional charge.

She was on her way.

Know your core strengths, Trudeau told the Rotarians and “play to your strengths.” Compete, she told them, in areas where you are good.

Trudeau left Microsoft in 1998 and spent the next 11 years working in the non-profit world. During that time, she met two women who shared a common interest – the Seattle Storm.

When Clay Bennett bought the Sonics and the Storm, there was concern that the teams would be moved to Oklahoma City.

The women asked themselves: “Is there anything we can do?”

One of the women, Ann Levinson, had political connections and got the group – now four women – a meeting with Bennett to see about buying the franchise from him. Bennett told them he didn’t want to split the teams. Dejected, but not defeated, the four continued to meet at Storm games to ponder what could be done. They finally entered into a month-long negotiation with Bennett.

“We didn’t think it would happen,” Trudeau said of a sale of the Storm to the group. Eventually, Bennett did sell the team to Trudeau and the others.

“Many times people will tell you that something is impossible,” Trudeau said.

Today the Storm is Seattle’s only professional women’s sports team.

“Stay focused,” Trudeau said. “It’s highly likely that you can accomplish (what you want).”

Craig Groshart is Editor of the Bellevue Reporter. He can be contacted at 425-453-4233.