JUDY CONNOLLY "I always knew that I could make it 1I I was just given a chance. "
In order to supplement
her low salary as a teacher, Judy Connolly spent her. I vacations doing secretarial> work in the New York City area. After 14 years of this, a friend insisted she try Wall Street. She went to work as a secretary for Merrill Lynch. That was 1979. By the end of the summer, she had taken "the hardest test 1 ever took," become a registered rep and decided to >eave
teaching.
Today, Connolly, 45, is a financial consultant at Merrill Lynch, making anywhere from $85,000 to $250,000 in a good year. Teaching and temping together had brought her $14,000 a year.
"You rise and fall on your own vision and your own ideas," says Connolly. She now manages 400 to 500 accounts with 50 to 100 active at any given time. And she hasn''''t entirely lost the satisfactions of teaching. Connolly also works with Early Success Strategy, a program at Merrill Lynch that guides new brokers in their first months. She is able to pass along her hard-earned knowledge to those just starting out. "I carne from a situation that seemed utterly hopeless at one time," Connolly reflects. "I never dreamed that 1 could gel to where I am today." (Working Woman, January 1986) Olagnosis:
By Fausto Fabio de Araujo