When Louise Kirkbride watched the first man land on the moon, she knew that she wanted a shot at it herself.
"To me it was obvious that everyone would want to be an astronaut."
Kirkbride has morphed from an engineer, rocket scientist and aspiring astronaut to a Web entrepreneur and customer service guru.
To some, it might seem like a strange career switch. But Kirkbride is used to doing things the hard way. In fact, she thrives on it.
Kirkbride ran away from home at the age of 17 to become part of the first class of women to enter the California Institute of Technology. She chose Caltech because it was "the hardest school to get into."
"It was obvious it was the only place for me to go," said Kirkbride, who is now CEO of Broad Daylight and was recently named one of the Top 25 Women on the Web.
She began with an undergraduate major in astrophysics but switched fields to graduate with a bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering. She now sits on the board of trustees for Caltech, where next year's undergraduate class is 40 percent female.
After Caltech, Kirkbride got a job at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. During her time at JPL, she had the opportunity to apply to become the first civilian and woman astronaut in the U.S. Space Shuttle Program. She made it to the final round of 80 applicants, from a pool of over 8,000 candidates.
Following her stint at the astronaut program, she launched her career as one of the few female engineers in Silicon Valley.
"In those days, women engineers were not very well accepted," Kirkbride said. "I decided that if I wanted to get ahead, I would have to do it on my own."
Kirkbride founded Answer Systems, where she secured the first patent for problem resolution technology. J.C. Penney signed up the company to run the customer service center for its 1,400 retail stores. The company was bought by Platinum Technology in 1995.
But Kirkbride wasn't satisfied. She still saw a huge unmet need in providing online customers with intelligent answers. So she took her idea to the Web and launched her third company, Broad Daylight, in February 2000.
"When I go to a website with a question, I should be able to get an answer," she explains.
Broad Daylight's software allows companies such as American Airlines and Cisco Systems to provide automatic, instant answers to customer questions on their website. Each question is answered just once, so visitors aren't plagued by multiple responses.
Kirkbride believes that Broad Daylight will be able to weather the rough tech climate by saving clients money and allowing customers to go beyond basic website FAQs to get intelligent answers to questions without waiting for live help.
Those closest to her agree that Kirkbride's vision will be able to succeed.
"Louise has steadfastly built a strong company with a real product, solving a real customer need, in a crazy market," said Heid Roizen, managing director of Softbank Venture Capital. "Broad Daylight will live or die not by some ideal or concept, but by providing real solutions that customers are willing to pay for."
While Kirkbride chose to launch her career on her own, she encourages other women to seek out sales positions, which are often the quickest way to rise to the top.
"It's great to see more women engineers," Kirkbride said. "But it's wonderful seeing more women salespeople (in executive positions)."
Others hope that women entering the field will follow Kirkbride's lead.
"There are certainly more (women engineers), but still not enough," Roizen said. "I hope Louise is a great role model to women following her path."
