Specter held a BA from Southern Connecticut College and an MA in food and design from Drexel University.
[1] In the 1970s, she hosted a consumer advice and food-related program on a local radio station, and wrote a weekly column for the Philadelphia Bulletin.
[2] Specter left the business world in 1979, when she was elected to one of the two allotted minority Republican Party at-large seats on the Philadelphia City Council.
She was re-elected three more times, though she finished third in the 1991 primary, behind her colleague on Council, W. Thacher Longstreth and Joseph Egan Jr.
Egan was subsequently selected to take Rizzo's spot on the ballot (and lost to former District Attorney Ed Rendell), and Longstreth and Specter were both re-elected.