Fathers beget careers along with their children

Ask an economist about fathers' influence on their children's choice of work and you might hear that modern dads make "increased investments ... in the occupation-specific human capital of their daughters."

Ask a son or daughter? You often get warm stories of gratitude.

In honor of Father's Day this Sunday, we're going with option two.

• • •

Ray Wells Jr. was 18 and a Golden Gloves boxer when his daughter, Tené, was born.

"He loved and married my mother, and I benefited from having a father who made a strong commitment to raise children who first and foremost knew they were loved, and secondly that they were in control of their lives," she said.

Ray and Renee Wells went on to have two sons, Ray III, now a senior news editor at KARE-TV, Ch. 11, and Jay, a Minneapolis firefighter.

As far back as she can remember, Tené Wells had regular Saturday outings with her dad. Her mother put her in a dress and sent the two of them out, to leave her to clean the house in peace.

They would go where the men go, to bars and pool halls. Tené remembers feeling the men's respect for her father, which only later she learned had to do with his boxing, his strong sense of responsibility, and his speaking out for civil rights.

Ray Wells worked blue-collar jobs, sometimes two and three at a time, to provide for the family. And he told his daughter she could do no less when at 18 she had twin daughters.

Tené went on to run a department at Honeywell, where her father had been fired during a particularly hard time, she said.

"I had 175 union men working for me," she remembered. "They were not happy, but it was the reputation of my father that protected me.

"It always helped me to be Ray Wells' daughter," she said.

She is president of WomenVenture, a nonprofit resource for women looking to find or develop good jobs.

"My sense of our mission to empower people came from him," Tené said. "But I also know that I came to the nonprofit sector partly because I wanted to run something. My dad made me want to be the boss."

Ray Wells Jr. died in October 2004, of complications from Alzheimer's disease. He was 71.

• • •

Glen Palm's three children always felt like part of his work life. It's a busy one: Palm is professor of family studies at St. Cloud University, and he runs fathering groups in town and in the nearby state prison.

"One of my memories is that Dad would get up early to grade papers, then he'd make breakfast and we'd all have breakfast together, and then everyone would go off to their days," said Noah Palm, the middle of Glen Palm and Jane Ellison's three children.

By turns, each would go with their dad to his Saturday morning fathering groups in town. Marisha, the oldest, also remembers tagging along to some professional conferences, "and I remember thinking he was hugely important -- clever and funny."

All three children are pursuing studies that bear witness to their father's influence.

There is Marisha's choice of neuropsychiatry, which she's studying in a Ph.D. program at the University of Manchester in England.

Noah is two years into a Ph.D. immunobiology program at Yale University. He hopes to be a professor at a research university.

And Allison, a freshman last year at Grinnell College in Iowa, plans to be a minister. Glen Palm had studied for a while to be a priest.

The Palm children said what they feel their father passed on to them is a love of work.

"My dad's work was ... not always but often rewarding, and by choice a huge part of his life," Marisha said. "I find myself looking for a career in which I can not only earn a living but invest myself.

"It may sound silly to say that I aspire to be a happy workaholic, but perhaps I do."

• • •

"Did my father influence my career choice? Absolutely. While I was growing up he would often talk about how he had thought about going to medical school. He would regale us with stories about working on an ambulance crew or the ski patrol. During college he decided to pursue other paths. When I was younger, some people would tell me that girls can't be doctors, but both my parents encouraged me to follow my dreams."

• Jennifer Schumann, third-year medical student at the University of Minnesota, and the daughter of Richard Olson, Pleasant Hill, Ore.

• • •

All I knew as a very young child was that I'd better understand why and how everything works -- from bicycles to automobiles to data management. It was later when the light went on as to where my father was gently nudging me: computers.

• Sharon Heimerl, of East Bethel, a freelance computer consultant and daughter of the late Howard Cutler, former head of Computer Science Corp. in Herndon, Va.

• • •

My father graduated from high school during the Great Depression. His father died in 1934, so he had to go to work to support the family. He fought in World War II, and after he returned he worked as an elevator service man for 33 years. He had a passion for learning, and I never saw him read anything but nonfiction. He always told us to do something practical, and that would keep you interested in work every day. So while I loved music and debated about majoring in it, I chose electrical engineering.

• Ken Hoyme, of Plymouth, system engineering fellow at Boston Scientific cardiac rhythm management, and son of the late Eng Hoyme, of Golden Valley.

(The quoted economist is Judith Hellerstein, who says that the more women go into traditionally men's fields, the more fathers are talking to their daughters about their work, and then -- like sons through time -- those daughters are more likely to follow into their fathers' careers.)

What are your workplace issues? You can reach H.J. Cummins at workandlife @startribune.com. Please sign your e-mails; no names will appear in print without prior approval.