Judith L. Roman could offer up her own life as a can-do example of how a woman from humble circumstances can succeed in business by really trying.

The first female chair of the Chamber of Commerce of Southern New Jersey, Roman also is president and CEO of AmeriHealth New Jersey, a health insurance company with 200,000 members statewide.

Now 55, Roman has worked in health care for three decades, including Oxford Health Plans and Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Her beginnings were modest, and so her ascendance to the peak of the corporate world sounds like the description of a Broadway musical with a scrappy-but-determined heroine as its centerpiece.

Pinched family finances -- and later, motherhood -- crowded out any plans for a college degree. Instead, Roman took a route that doesn't normally point to leadership and the corporate suite -- Katharine Gibbs, the venerable secretarial school.

"It taught me professionalism," said Roman. "My first job was as a secretary in a pharmaceutical firm.

"I did have drive and desire to grow, and people trusted me with opportunities. And I did climb that corporate ladder, so to speak, from the ground up, and it's probably made me a better leader."

She is now leading the region's 1,700-member chamber, an organization more than 130 years old.

Debra DiLorenzo, president and CEO of the chamber, ticked off Roman's virtues, among them one likely to be critical for chamber members:

"She knows how to run a business," said DiLorenzo.

Kathleen Davis, the chamber's executive vice president and COO, said Roman is a compelling leader.

"She has tremendous business acumen and ability to connect to people. She is very smart. She can size up a situation quickly. And she works hard."

Hard work was part of the ethic Roman learned growing up. She described her early family life in Essex County as structured, loving and hard. Her mother was ill for many years and her grandparents, who lived with the family, became ill as they aged.

"I think I grew up with a very meager lifestyle," Roman said recently at AmeriHealth's Mount Laurel office. (Corporate offices will move this summer to a central location in Cranbury.)

"We struggled. It was tough growing up. We didn't have a lot, but we had a very close family. I can feel for people who don't have (much), and I want to help people do better, improve their lives. It probably comes out of struggling as a child."

Married and the mother of two grown sons, Roman sits on the boards of half a dozen charities and nonprofits, including the board of the Battleship New Jersey Memorial and Museum in Camden. It is a way for her to celebrate the military service of her two uncles and father.

But she is reluctant to underscore her achievements as a female, either in the corporate world or at the chamber, drawing no distinction between a man and woman in business. Nor is Roman interested in getting a boost up simply because she is female.

She wants only to reap what she sows, an attitude, she suggested, that may go back to her youth.

"I am one of three daughters," said Roman. "I think my dad raised us the way he would expect to be raised himself. There was never a separation of what a boy does or what a girl does. If my father was painting or wallpapering, we were holding the ladder."

As for her ambition, it may be as much a part of who Roman is as the trace of her North Jersey accent.

"It's a personality trait," she acknowledged. "I have a lot of energy, and I like to do a good job. It's a work ethic.

"It's probably no different than my dad getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning to shovel snow because he couldn't miss a day of work, or never taking a sick day."

Roman brings her persistence to cheerleading for the chamber. Recession or prosperity, she believes businesspeople profit by what the chamber promotes: Networking with others in the community, schmoozing with governmental movers and shakers, registering their positions on governmental rules and regulations and sharing the tips and resources critical to making it in business.

Her own expectations as a boss in the corporate world are high, Roman said.

"I understand the challenges," said Roman. "And I've never taken anything for granted.

I've learned through experience it takes dedication, loyalty, trust, passion, drive -- and I was willing to work hard to get that."

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