People to Watch
By - Kate Ballen

(FORTUNE Magazine) – Mimi Vandermolen

Vandermolen, 39, successfully steered her childhood love of toy cars into a career designing full-size ones for Ford Motor Co. She went right to Ford after she graduated from Canada's Ontario College of Art in product design. Her flashiest projects to date: the interiors of the Mercury Sable and its sister, the Ford Taurus. Together both cars won a record number of design awards. Now a design manager and one of the few female designers in the industry, Vandermolen is attuned to the needs of women: ''I think about the fact that women may have fingernails they don't want to chip and may wear tight skirts when they drive.'' Alan H. Blank

Now that banks and savings banks are financial supermarkets, Blank is rushing in to stock their shelves. His four-year-old company, Pamco Securities & Insurance Services, in Encino, California, sells securities, mutual funds, and insurance products from desks set up in bank and S&L lobbies. ''I run my business so the institution has nothing to lose,'' says Blank, 38. He foots the bill for hiring, training, and paying the sales force and then takes half the 4% or more commission on every sale his troops make to the institution's customers. These sales jumped from $130 million in 1985 to $526 million this past year.

Lynda J. O'Dea

Attendance has slowed to a walk at many U.S. race tracks, but at Laurel Race ; Course in Laurel, Maryland, the gate is up 35% since 1985. Reason: The sport of kings now boasts a castle. O'Dea, the track's marketing director, dreamed up a $2-million Las Vegas-style building near the main clubhouse that was christened the Sports Palace. She filled it with computers that spew forth statistics on horses and jockeys, and six theaters that house giant TV screens to broadcast football games and other sporting events. ''We are bringing racing into the future with the glamour and comfort of casinos,'' she says. O'Dea, 37, went from high school directly into harness as a secretary; then seven years ago she joined Frank DeFrancis, Laurel's owner, as an administrative assistant, and rose rapidly. But ironically she has had to keep her distance from the track. She is allergic to horses.

Mark J. Estren

Why does a guy with Ph.D. degrees in English and psychology watch television all day? Because he has to. As general manager of Financial News Network, which is located in New York City, Estren, 38, wants to make sure his broadcasts run smoothly. Since his arrival at FNN in 1984, he has transformed the cable network's $7.1-million loss to last year's $1.3-million profit, while hoisting revenues 126%, to more than $15 million. ''We were a pale imitation of a news network,'' says Estren, who managed the expansion of daytime business broadcasts into a 24-hour stream of stock and commodity prices, investment advice, and international business news for some 24 million subscribers. Off the air Estren indulges his hobbies of hatching reptiles and updating his history of underground comics. Ronin Publishing is reprinting the history in March.

Kenneth I. Chenault

If you're a big-time spender, Chenault has his eye on you. The executive vice president and general manager of American Express in New York City now heads its Platinum Card/Gold Card division. He oversees about four million Gold Card members and 130,000 others who, by invitation only and a willingness to pay $250 annually, possess platinum powers. These include access to a wealth of travel services and a credit line of up to $100,000. Chenault, 35, earned this exclusive domain as a reward for tripling profits in the $396-million-a-year merchandise division in just three years. ''I basically believe I can learn anything,'' says Chenault, who has been promoted four times in five years.