Marilley was 24 when she returned to Washington to start Courtesy Associates with two telephones and $500. Her target market: corporate representatives who had no office staff of their own. Her operators were trained to sound like executive secretaries. "Courtesy" was the company's philosophy as well as its name.

As business soared, so did Marilley. Discovering that her flight instructors dreamed of flying around the world in two small planes, she volunteered to help make the dream a reality. To keep track of her many tasks, she adapted the flight checklist she used as a pilot - a technique now standard in event planning. The project launched Courtesy Associates into the event planning and public relations business.

As the company grew, so did its services, from turn-key offices for out-of-town executives - complete with furnishings and support staff - to travel arrangements. Eventually, Marilley said, Courtesy could do anything that clients didn't want to do themselves.

Jane Marilley was a local girl who remained loyal to the institutions that shaped her. A graduate of Georgetown Visitation School and Trinity College, she served on their boards. She was the second woman to serve as a director of the Washington Board of Trade.

When she died of cancer in 1976, at the age of 53, her business was grossing $7 million annually. Today, Courtesy Associates, a $10 million-a-year business, is still run by women - Marilley's protegees, Louise Lynch and Sheila Stampfli. "We never talked about the fact that we were women in business," Stampfli recalls of Jane Marilley. "She had this attitude that there wasn't anything you couldn't do if you put your mind to it."