(FORTUNE Magazine) – Bush Administration honchos -- particularly women -- are high on the list of those corporations looking to fill board seats. No small irony that, given the ex-President's popularity among female voters.

New directors include Barbara Franklin, Bush's Commerce Secretary, back on Dow Chemical's board, and Labor Secretary Lynn Martin, who will join Ameritech's. The calendar of former Health and Human Services head Louis Sullivan is sure filling up, with board meetings at General Motors, Cigna, and Household International. Defense boss Dick Cheney is now a director of Union Pacific and US West. Education's Lamar Alexander rejoined the board of Martin Marietta. Bush types, says Lee Pomeroy of headhunter Egon Zehnder International, ''come from a generally -- but not wildly -- pro-business environment. Reagan's Cabinet members were a little less attractive.'' Alexander thinks government types are more tuned to the social needs that create business. But he says: ''Boards need people with a broad range of experience. I wouldn't want a board whose members' only experience was serving in some President's Cabinet.'' A longtime public servant, Cheney says the switch to the private sector isn't hard: ''If you've been Defense Secretary awhile, nothing surprises you.''