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During the mid-1970s, future entrepreneur Lillian Lincoln Lambert taught classes in corporate finance and management at Bowie State University, passing along the knowledge she had gained as the first black woman to receive an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Several years later, the one-time maid from rural Virginia founded a building maintenance company, Centennial One, which she started in her garage and built over time to generate $20 million in sales and employ 1,200 people before she sold it in 2001.

Lambert returned to Bowie State on March 25 to share her success story, recounted in her book, "The Road to Someplace Better: From the Segregated South to Harvard Business School and Beyond," written with Rosemary Brutico.

A resident of Mechanicsville, Va., she spoke at the second annual Women's History Month Tea. A group of students, faculty and graduates had read her book and gathered for tea, questions and a book signing.

Student Alexandra Garrett, 23, a public relations major from Oxon Hill, asked at what point in her career did Lambert know when to ask for help. Garrett said she never thinks to ask for help but thought she'd "go out on a limb" and ask Lambert for her thoughts on the subject.

"I asked for help to learn how to ask for help," said Garrett, who was surprised at the answer.

Lambert said she ignored her mother's advice to get a good education but changed her mind later after a series of low-paying jobs. Setting her sites on college, Lambert asked her cousin to help her research ways to pay for tuition at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

"He helped me apply for a scholarship, and I got loans, a scholarship and a job," Lambert said.

While at Howard, her marketing professor, H. Naylor Fitzhugh, who had graduated from the Harvard Business School, encouraged her to apply to the MBA program. Lambert failed the entrance exam because of low math scores, but she took it again and got in.

"You don't have to give up just because someone tells you ‘no,' " she said.

While at Harvard, Lambert and several other black students initiated a program to recruit more black students and also started an African-American student union. She received the Harvard Alumni Achievement Award in 2003 and also established the Centennial One, Inc. scholarship fund at Bowie State.

Garrett said Lambert's talk not only changed her views about asking for help but also gave her information about how to pursue her own goal of starting a public relations firm, including the need to get a degree and write a business plan.

"Her story really opened my eyes," said Garrett, who conceived of the 1960s and 1970s, when Lambert was breaking through barriers, as a time of "peace and love."

"It was a struggle, being black and a woman, I didn't know it was that hard," Garrett said. "She had to push herself forward in business, which was made for white men."

E-mail Virginia Terhune at vterhune@gazette.net.