Gladys West

#68/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

Gladys West had no idea, at the time, that her recordings of satellite locations and accompanying mathematical calculations would become today's GPS system and affect so many areas of life. She remarks, "When you’re working every day, you’re not thinking, ‘What impact is this going to have on the world? You're thinking, ‘I’ve got to get this right.'" And apparently, she did just that. 

Last year, Gladys was honored during a Black History Month celebration and U.S. Navy Captain Godfrey Weekes, who served alongside her, described how significant of a role she played during her time spent at Dahlgren. “She rose through the ranks, worked on the satellite geodesy [science that measures the size and shape of Earth] and contributed to the accuracy of GPS and the measurement of satellite data,” he wrote. "As Gladys West started her career as a mathematician at Dahlgren in 1956, she likely had no idea that her work would impact the world for decades to come."

Gladys Mae West (née Brown), born in 1931, is an American mathematician known for her contributions to Global Positioning Systems. As a girl growing up in Dinwiddie County south of Richmond, all Gladys knew was that she didn’t want to work in the fields, picking tobacco, corn and cotton, or in a nearby factory, beating tobacco leaves into pieces small enough for cigarettes and pipes, as her parents did; to provide for their family. She saw education as a "way out". When she learned that the valedictorian and salutatorian from her high school would earn a scholarship to Virginia State College (now University), she studied hard and graduated at the top of her class. She got her free ticket to college, majored in math and taught two years in Sussex County before she went back to school for her master’s degree. She sought jobs where she could apply her skills and eventually got a call from the Dahlgren base, then known as the Naval Proving Ground and now called Naval Support Facility Dahlgren.

“That’s when life really started,” she said. Gladys began her career in 1956, the second black woman hired at the base and one of only four black employees. One was a mathematician named Ira West, and the two dated for 18 months before they married in 1957. “That was a great time to be at the base,” Ira said. “They were just discovering computers.” While he spent most of his career developing computer programs for ballistic missiles launched from submarines, Gladys’ calculations eventually led to satellites. She collected information from the orbiting machines, focusing on information that helped to determine their exact location as they transmitted from around the world. Data was entered into large scale “super computers” that filled entire rooms. Gladys worked on computer software to ensure that calculations for surface elevations and geoid heights were accurate. She took pride in knowing that data that she was entering was correct and she would work tirelessly to make certain of her work’s accuracy.

The process that led to GPS is too scientific for a newspaper story, but Gladys West would say it took a lot of work—equations checked and double-checked, along with lots of data collection and analysis. Although she might not have grasped its future usage, she was pleased by the company she kept. “I was ecstatic,” she said. “I was able to come from Dinwiddie County and be able to work with some of the greatest scientists working on these projects.”

Ralph Neiman, her department head in 1979, acknowledged those skills in a commendation he recommended for Gladys, project manager for the Seasat radar altimetry project. Launched in 1978, Seasat was the first satellite designed for remote sensing of oceans with synthetic aperture radar. “This involved planning and executing several highly complex computer algorithms which have to analyze an enormous amount of data,” Neiman wrote. “You have used your knowledge of computer applications to accomplish this in an efficient and timely manner.” He also commended the many hours she dedicated to the project, beyond the normal work week, and the fact that it had cut the processing time in half, saving the base many thousands of dollars. Dr. Jim Colvard was technical director—the top civilian position at NSWC Dahlgren – from 1973 to 1980 and knew her as one of his students in a graduate program and as a professional employee. “She was an excellent student and a respected and productive professional,” he wrote in an email. “Her competence, not her color, defined her.”

While she may not be as well known as other women in STEM fields, her contribution is undeniable. Gladys West retired from the base in 1998, a year after her husband, and the two celebrated by traveling to New Zealand and Australia. She was excited about the new stage of her life and all the things she might get into. She’d been taking one course at a time toward her doctorate in philosophy from Virginia Tech and was ready for the last step, to write her dissertation. “However, the Almighty apparently had other plans for me,” she said. Five months after retirement, she had a stroke that impaired her hearing and vision, balance and use of her right side. She was feeling pretty sorry for herself until “all of a sudden, these words came into my head: ‘You can’t stay in the bed, you’ve got to get up from here and get your Ph.D.’ ” She did just that.

She and her husband started taking classes at the King George YMCA to rebuild her strength and recover the mobility she’d lost in the stroke. She had to have a quadruple bypass later, then dealt with breast cancer in 2011. The two continue to attend five exercise classes a week, and both are going strong. He ran a half-marathon six years ago, at age 80, and she’s in the midst of writing her memoirs. “Gladys and Ira are two of the finest people I’ve ever known,” said Cindy Miller, a King George resident and former technical writer at Dahlgren. “They’re just good, solid-to-the-core, God-fearing people.”

As for the GPS, the Wests use it when they travel, although she still prefers to refer to a paper map. That perplexes Carolyn Oglesby, the couple’s oldest daughter. The Wests have three children and seven grandchildren. “I asked her why she didn’t just use the Garmin [GPS] since she knows the equations that she helped write are correct,” Oglesby said. “She says the data points could be wrong or outdated so she has to have that map.” Gladys West is still doing her own calculations. 

Source: Google search.