Judy Foley, The Patricia Moore Group Ltd. In operation since 1984 and "California's premiere introduction service for successful people of culture and attainment. Created specifically to fill a need among busy professionals wanting to meet quality partners for lifetime companionship." The founder and president emeritus is Patricia Moore. Foley is now president, having purchased the business from Moore in June 1994. Foley is divorced after a 15-year marriage. Although she never had children, she has been very active in children's causes, included serving as chairperson of the board of directors of the San Mateo County March Of Dimes. Birthyear 1950, phone (415) 777-9752, HQ San Francisco.

Frank Gregorsky: The focus in this interview is at least as much on you as it is on the company. So don't be afraid to be introspective -- in the process, you'll no doubt pull in stories from the enterprise to complete your points. But -- how did you wind up here?

Judy Foley: People always ask how I came into this. How it happened is kind of fun. One of the women who was a client of Pat's is a good friend of mine, and it's amazing to me how some of these circles interact and overlap: Catherine is my jogging partner. One morning she said to me, "Do you know how I met Jim?" (Jim is the doctor she's going to marry.) I had no idea, and at 6 a.m. didn't feel much like guessing. Well, she had met him thru the Patricia Moore Group, and Pat was looking for somebody to take over Northern California. What we discovered is that it takes an odd combination of characteristics to be a matchmaker. Not only tapping into the people, and reading between the lines, it's also being able to run a business. And those things are almost in opposition.

FG: They're not commonly found in the same individual.

Foley: No. So that's how this started -- [based on Catherine's endorsement] Patricia Moore called me in to talk. We talked. I'd never even heard of an introduction service. But at the time I had a small firm that was recruiting doctors. When you're in recruiting, you quickly discover that people "hire themselves." How similar is this [world of romantic search] to that? We are looking for a version of ourselves in someone else. Because, if the model relationship is one of trust, you need to have some idea of what regularly goes on in that other person. Indeed it's true that opposites attract, but they don't endure, because opposite [sets of traits and beliefs] can drive us crazy.

FG: What were you doing between high school and these two most recent jobs? How were you zig-zagging in this direction?

Foley: I came out of school and taught elementary -- I taught educationally handicapped. My father was a principal at a school for the mentally retarded, and my mother was a teacher for many years. For many women in their 40s, certainly according to my interviews, an awful lot of us came out [of college] and started teaching. To our mothers, that was safety. "If anything ever happens to your husband and you have children to support, you can always go back to teaching." It's amazing how many women I interview who, when out of college, taught school.

FG: How many siblings did you have?

Foley: I'm from a rather wonderful family -- we're all adopted. And I have an adopted younger brother. My mother and father also raised two other children, one considerably older, who's an attorney. So we always had people in and out!

FG: Did you basically spend your 20s doing trial and error, or were you working according to some sort of plan?

Foley: No. For a long time I really thought that entrepreneurs were born [and probably the majority are]. But I wasn't one of those. I needed a series of steps to get here. The evening before I flew to southern California to sign the contract to buy this business, I was at home and [feeling] pretty nervous. It's a huge undertaking. But my mother said, "I know you can do this. It's scary, but we all support you -- I want you to know that." That was so comforting. "Okay, it's gonna be fine." Every time I get into a little bit of a place where you're growing a business and it gets scary, I remember what she said. I also have become more relaxed about the spurts of growing a business. Somehow, things always work themselves out. Now I work under the motto, "If you're already skating on thin ice, why not dance?" So it's much more enjoyable than it was a year ago.

FG: And you only had a little bit under a year from the time you went to work for Pat to the time you became the sole responsible officer.

Foley: Not only the sole responsible officer, but I'm also the person who works with the client. There's a lot of back-up support -- relationship coaches, the administrative staff -- but we don't need a lot of office space, because everything is primarily done on the phone. What I do is sales, and presentations -- I'm out in the community -- and I also do the matchmaking.

FG: And you deal with financing thru the selling. You don't have to deal with venture capitalists or banks for sizable loans?

Foley: Nope. I make my expenses and my salary every month. Outside of selling, the big expense in this business is advertising. In some companies of this type, as much as 50 cents of every dollar that comes in goes for advertising. We have a pretty good-sized budget because we're on two radio stations here in the Bay area; we're on the radio in Sacramento; we're on the radio down south. So our radio budget every month, for a small business, is pretty big. And then we're in Stanford and Berkeley's alumni magazines.

FG: And advertising expenses end up proportionately larger because you're not a chain.

Foley: And never will be. But that's a whole different business. There's dating and there's introduction services, and they're night and day.

FG: Are there any "chain" introduction services? Franchisers?

Foley: No, and I don't think there can be. Anything that uses video, anything that uses pictures, you ought to classify as a dating service. And that's a very important part of people's lives. People are basically doing that on their own -- putting a video in or flipping thru books. They don't get the conversation and other work we're doing here -- the coaching, seven hours of working with a coach. Or the readings and the tapes [we assign]. All those things are gonna help our success rate, and I want those to quantum-leap.

[Dr. Stanley B. Woll, on their board of advisors, tracks the success rate of this and related organizations. His exact survey-methodology of clients is not known by Foley. "He is doing his own statistics on people and relationships -- to find the factors that will predict connectors."]

FG: What are the strongest patterns so far?

Foley: A couple we found may be common sense -- what we call the Double Rule of Five. People should be within five years of age of each other, and it doesn't matter whether the man or woman is the older. You've more or less gone thru the same passages at the same time, the same music, all those sorts of things. And the other one is interesting: Within five inches of height. That's less obvious, but it does make sense -- comfort level.

FG: Other than Pat herself, who have been your mentors, coaches and role models?

Foley: I take lots of self-development seminars. I also do a lot of networking with other businesswomen -- San Francisco Business & Professional Women, I'm on that board, and thru that, I have a Coach. You can either coach or you can play -- but you can't coach yourself. I need someone on the outside to monitor my growth and what's going on with me and my business. You've gotta have somebody to "spill" to, talk over frustrations -- 'cause we only look at those things thru our own filter. Somebody else can look at it [more clearly].

FG: Do you have any hobbies?

Foley: Um-hmm. When I was growing up, I had a piano lesson every Monday night from the time I was five until the time I was 18, and a flute lesson every Friday.

FG: [Grinning] That's a lot more consistent than most of us.

Foley: Yeah. My mother is -- I recognize in hindsight -- quite clever. She gave me choices. I could practice the piano and flute for half-an-hour each evening and she would do the dishes -- or I could do the dishes. I practiced, she did dishes, and there was no argument [laughter]. I'm very grateful for my music. Wherever I am, I have a baby-grand piano. I also have two fears I'm trying to overcome. One is heights and the other is horses -- I took a bad fall one summer in Germany. So I've not gotten back on, but the first thing you have to do is be able to be around them. By the end of the year, I'll be able to at least get up there and let the animal move.

FG: How many of your [300] clients are under 30?

Foley: None. I usually start getting them around 35. But I'm seeing and getting more calls from younger people all the time. Should we be taking this younger group? The age of 35 seems to be a point where they become doctors or lawyers or start their own business or whatever they've been working toward; they need several years in the business world to feel comfortable. Then their focus changes to, "Okay I've got a home and car and this and that, I'm secure in my profession -- but I'm missing a relationship." That's when we get them.

FG: Ever figured out the median or average age?

Foley: No. We've got a 68-year-old Superior Court Judge, but he's unusual. The overall range is between 30 and 55, with [a majority between] 35 and 45.

[Other company demographics from Woll, who teaches at Cal State Fullerton: Of the Moore clients, 98% have undergrad degrees. Sixty percent of the men and 54% of the women have master's level degrees, 57% have never had children, and 49% want to. Some 71% are "fairly to very athletic," 75% attend theater, and 54% favor dancing -- but no stats on a probable gender gap regarding the latter activity. Politically, the clients self-define this way: 39% liberal, 36% moderate, 26% conservative.]

FG: Why do you think, since 1980, that so many women have left big corporations and teaching to start their own enterprises?

Foley: I think it's [a matter of] getting out of the box. This society is changing. On the market, of course, you see a lot more books on relationships and "finding yourself." A whole group of people are not accepting the old models [of work, success and income]. In relationships especially, we're seeing we really don't have a model. Our grandparents' generation -- typically he worked outside the home, she worked inside the home -- was fairly functional. Then came the 50% divorce rate and we figured, "We'll just change partners and keep going." But that didn't work either. So I think we're looking for a new model.

FG: Of everything?

Foley: I don't think you make one big change without having it affect something else. As relationships change, things in life and business will change, which takes it right back to the relationship. The whole process is interconnected. I don't see how you can separate it out. So many things in life are challenges that need to be balanced. And, as women have become stronger, and that "Amazon" part gets developed, it doesn't work well with the male. So you have an awful lot of women in Corporate America -- I can't quote you the statistics, but they're amazing -- and so many of them are not married. And, of those who are, not very many have children. So this is the generation [i.e. female baby-boomers] that made a sacrifice. But the women I see in their thirties [i.e. post-Boom] are not willing to make that sacrifice. Working with the ones in their thirties is much different from working with the ones in the forties and fifties. The ones in their thirties are willing to take a couple steps off that ladder -- in order to have the man, the children, and families.

FG: The post-Boom women don't seem nearly so desirous of going out and proving, "I'm tough, I can become the CEO" -- there's less of that?

Foley: Exactly. And the ones in their forties and fifties say, "I'm very successful, I speak four languages, I travel all over the world, I do this and this and that and that."

FG: "Plus I have five IRAs" [laughter].

Foley: Exactly -- "but I don't have a man." This is one of those things I work on. "Some of those things have to be adjusted, if you want this [new and more balanced situation]."

FG: That must be really sensitive -- because, in those situations, you're dealing with a female [professional] ego that is almost as big as the typical male ego! You're calling on them to reconfigure the previous 20 years.

Foley: True, but -- "How badly do you want this? And can you look at yourself?" What goes on here is introduction feedback -- and it's done gently and kindly. But it's also honest. Men give me reports, women give me reports -- and I won't reveal exactly who said what. But it is important to understand how the opposite sex sees you -- honestly -- and to be given access to that information.

FG: Is if fair to say, of the men you talk to in their thirties, being raised in a "feminist era," they have less problem with a woman being older or having a $100,000 salary? They can deal with that somewhat easier?

Foley: Yeah, they can deal with that a little easier. And I do have a few under 35. In their work with the relationship coaches, they seem more willing to look at patterns.

FG: Patterns that may place their own behaviors "on the table"?

Foley: Yeah. Exactly. And I'm very respectable of that --because it's not easy. I tell people that a professional service like this exists for four reasons. One, educated professionals don't go to bars to look for relationships. Two, they won't date within the workplace. Three, they often are not involved with churches, which once were a strong social component of our lives. And four, women are delaying marriage well past their college years, and so they lose that social network. After you're out of college, and you've met all the "friends of friends," the network runs out. What do you do? Also, we lead pretty patterned lives. We prefer this wonderfully romantic ideal where the right person will be just around the corner, and bells and whistles and lights and sirens will tell us when it happens. But you can run into somebody -- bumping your carts at Safeway or crossing your skis at Tahoe -- and, even when it happens, we don't know whether the person standing 10 feet away is the spouse or the significant other. So, even if this kind of sparkle suddenly occurs --

FG: The odds are one of you is not available.

Foley: Right. Also, people are reluctant to appear foolish [by making an immediate overture]. So we kind of stumble and back away from [the very same sensations we've been so long waiting to encounter]. It's hard for people to meet.

FG: What do your female clients insist on that causes you the most problems?

Foley: They tend to say, "The man has to be six feet tall, of course." And I say why "of course"? "Well, I just -- he needs to be six feet tall." This is fascinating -- that reptilian part of our brain. I can't remember the woman who explained it in her book but, back when we were hunters and gatherers, the tallest man could see the antelope first -- and because he saw it first, his family survived. This [instinct] has been passed along -- it's still there! I don't care if [a female client] is only five-foot-one, she still wants somebody who is six feet.

FG: Even after you tell them about the second "five rule"?

Foley: I explain how this goes back to that reptilian part of their brain, but the reality is: "There aren't that many antelope out on Market Street, so you don't need a man who can see the antelope first." And then when they get it --

FG: Or even to see the CANTaloupe [laughter].

Foley: Right [laughter]. Now we're back to the Safeway on Wednesday night -- the Marina Safeway, which is where the singles go in the Bay Area, at least on that one night.

Related Links:

• Discovery Institute
• Joint Economic Committee
• Women Business-Owners in Post-Corporate America