A large celebration was held at the Midtown Marriott yesterday in honor of Laurel Parrish-Harte, who was recently made the first-ever, female executive at The Gordon Bouldt Corporation.
She attributes the majority of her success to speaking into an electric fan during important meetings.
“I knew from about a year into my employment that I’d have to sound as commanding as a man if I was ever going to be successful. That’s when I started speaking into an electric fan,” says Parrish-Harte, into an electric fan.
When heard through the whirring blades of a Vornado room fan, Parrish-Harte’s voice sounds robotic and grand, in a timbre not unlike George Takei of Star Trek fame. This jarring and attention-getting move feels especially haunting, coming from a 5-foot-2-inch woman.
It’s this booming voice, she says, that took her from the ranks of Gordon Bouldt human resources associate to vice president in less than five years. And she owes it all to the fan.
“When I speak into an electric fan, it’s like I immediately become more confident. I become the leader I always knew I could be,” Parrish-Harte said into an electric fan. “People think women are hampered in the workplace because they’re more emotional or distracted by family pressures,” she says, crouched behind a small black fan plugged into the wall. “But when you add the robotic overtones, people forget that I could ever make a mistake.”
A pair of electric fan handlers, known only as Pete and Tony, usually follow Parrish-Harte throughout the Bouldt Building from meeting to meeting, hauling her preferred mouth fan: a classic Vornado VFan in Chrome. A simple attachment on her cell phone makes sure she’s speaking into an electric fan for every important phone call. And at Gordon Bouldt Hong Kong, a special Chinese-made paper fan always awaits her arrival. “Those paper ones require a lot of wrist work,” says Parrish-Harte, “but they make me feel so feminine while respecting local cultural traditions.”
At home, electric fans run in every room in the house so that she’s never too far away from an electric fan if she needs to discipline her children.
“Speaking into an electric fan makes my two boys think I’m God,” Parrish-Harte says, laughing heartily, into an electric fan.
In fact, it’s been so long since Parrish-Harte spoke without an electric fan, no one seems to remember what her real voice sounds like. But these days, she’s looking forward. And she wants to help young girls everywhere achieve the success she did.
With the support of GordoBoCorp, Parrish-Harte aims to put an electric fan on the desk of every American school-age girl by the year 2017. “The more girls we get speaking into electric fans, the stronger our country will become,” she said into an electric fan.
“Hey, check this out: I aaaaaaaaam Iroooooooon Maaaaaaan,” she says into an electric fan.
