SHARON BALKCOM: Motivated and
Self-Assured
Sharon
Balkcom, raised on the scrappy streets of East Harlem,
was in the third grade when her teachers realized that
she had a gift for mathematics, said her mother, Rosalie,
who was not surprised.
Ms. Balkcom, 43, the second of three children,
attended some of the city's most rigorous and selective
secondary schools: Robert F. Wagner Middle School on the
Upper West Side and the Bronx High School of Science. She
received an M.B.A. from Pace University and a bachelor's
degree in political science from Colgate University.
Ms. Balkcom's academic aptitude and varied education
prepared her to tackle most jobs. She was a computer
systems manager at Marsh & McLennan, where she had
worked for about three years, her mother said. "She was
motivated," said her brother Gordon, a publicist.
"Whereas I might need someone to kick-start me, she was
self-motivated."
As a child, that motivation helped Ms. Balkcom, a
resident of White Plains, overcome teasing from
neighborhood children about being a bookworm. "She held
her head up and continued to do what was right," Mrs.
Balkcom said. "My husband and I brought our children up
the best we could. We tried to instill in them the
importance of having an education. We taught them that
things were not handed to them. If they wanted something,
they had to work hard to get it."
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