WOMEN AT THE HELM Audrey Dunning

A few months after Audrey Dunning took a job at Downtown tech firm Summa Technology, the Nasdaq bottomed out, and the tech industry imploded.

She remembers thinking, "Oh my God, what have I done?"

Five years after the dot.com bust, both Summa, an information technology services firm, and Ms. Dunning, its vice president of sales and marketing, are still around.

The story of how a young Pittsburgh company managed to stay afloat says a bit about Ms. Dunning's approach -- hard work and going against the grain.

Hiring staff, seeking out industry partnerships and focusing on marketing weren't cool in the early part of the decade as the tech sector froze.

Just as regional and national IT firms were shuttering in the midst of a dried-up tech market, Ms. Dunning and her sales and marketing team dug in their heels and pursued local customers. That was despite predictions that upgrading IT infrastructure was the last thing on companies' agenda during tech's nuclear winter.

She figured developing a regional presence, even spending money in tough times to advertise locally, would pay off.

When talking about her career and Summa's ability to build clientele during tech's lean years, Ms. Dunning never uses the word "I." It's always "we" when describing her work, her success. Women, she said "think more collaboratively. That's the way we're wired."