During her tenure the organization achieved financial independence from the Republican National Committee in Washington, D.C.[3] She also prodded U.S. Presidents Ronald W. Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush to appoint more women to executive government offices.
[2][5] Heitman was a delegate to the 1968 and 1976 Republican national conventions held in Miami Beach, Florida, and Kansas City, Missouri, to nominate Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford Jr., respectively.
[2] As the president of the National Federation of Republican Women, Heitman worked to establish two schools for training within the organization, one for campaign management and the other for political polling.
[2] In her first year she convened meetings of female party activists in a program called "Target '80s" to encourage candidates to seek office in 1984, when Reagan would be running for a second term as president.
"[6] After her party co-chairmanship, Reagan appointed Heitman in 1987 to succeed Kenneth Duberstein on the Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad.