![]() While he spent most of his career developing computer programs for ballistic missiles launched from submarines, her calculations eventually led to satellites. “That was a great time to be at the base,” he said. One was a mathematician named Ira West, and the two dated for 18 months before they married in 1957. She began her career in 1956, the second black woman hired at the base and one of only four black employees. “That’s when life really started,” she said. 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. ![]() 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. 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. “I realized I had to get an education to get out,” she said. “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.”Īs a girl growing up in Dinwiddie County south of Richmond, all Gladys Mae Brown 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. “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. ![]() Godfrey Weekes, then-commanding officer at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, described the “integral role” played by West. In a 2017 message about Black History Month, Capt. “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.’ ”Īnd get it right she did, according to those who worked with her or heard about her. West, who lives in King George County, admits she had no idea at the time - when she was recording satellite locations and doing accompanying calculations - that her work would affect so many. “I think her story is amazing,” James added. The revelation that her 87-year-old sorority sister was one of the “Hidden Figures” behind GPS motivated James to share it with the world. that does not utilize the Global Positioning System.” “There is not a segment of this global society - military, auto industry, cell phone industry, social media, parents, NASA, etc. ![]() “GPS has changed the lives of everyone forever,” James said. ![]()
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