“To find the best people we could, we had to take a fresh look at hiring practices,” said company President Cullen L. Speakman, 34.

“I think it's a matter of recognizing real priorities,” said Todd R. Hilbert, 32, project manager. “Sometimes we just have to take off in the middle of the day, and here it's relaxed enough that we can come in Saturday or Sunday to make up the time.”

Quality time at home may be even more of an issue to women, especially mothers. Betsy Blankenbiller, 35, said she often talks to mothers who are in her own situation.

“Women go to college to have careers, but if you have a child you want to raise yourself, you have to drop out,” she said.

For a decade Blankenbiller worked her way up as an engineer in a company that paid good wages for doing a good job. After she became pregnant, she arranged a reduced-hour schedule with the company so that she could have more time to raise her family.

“When I got back to work, they changed the rules, and said I had to work full time, or I couldn't work,” she said.

After struggling to make a decision, Blankenbiller quit, and discovered she was unable to receive unemployment compensation or a similar job.

“I found that people like myself just fall though the cracks,” she said. “We want to have more time with our kids, and at the same time want to keep our careers going.

“But it's nearly impossible to find part time work for someone who offers professional wages.”

At first, the experience left her bitter, Blankenbiller concedes.

Then she found a position as data systems manager and designer for Speakman Drafting, where work time is flexible to accommodate family.

She and Suzanne E. Elia, 31, marketing and service manager, each work on a reduced-hour basis.

“It's not exactly job sharing, because Suzanne handles marketing, while I'm doing more with database systems, but in some areas we overlap,” Blankenbiller said.

Elia, who also found it hard to find a part-time job that paid for her education and used her experience as an engineer, agreed, noting that when necessary, all employees at Speakman take work home and work on it at home.

“It's very, very hard to find a good part-time job,” said Elia. “If you don't want to work an 8-to-5 job five days a week, most companies don't think you're a professional.