DEVELOPING STAR: Julie Newcomb has gained national...

DEVELOPING STAR: Julie Newcomb has gained national attention since January when she became the first woman chief executive of a publicly held development company. NBC News last week asked Newcomb, who runs Costain Homes in Newport Beach, about a theory that women, by nature, make more democratic leaders. She agrees: “I went to (our construction people) and said, ‘for a while, this is going to look like the blind leading the blind. But trust me.’ It worked very well. If I had said, ‘Look, this is what you’re going to do,’ they would have resented it.”