Inspired by the re-telling of her sorority sister’s engineering success in the now classic film “Hidden Figures”, a Virginia woman named Gladys West is coming forward with her hidden history and involvement in created a technology most of us use everyday—GPS. As it turns out, like her sorority sister, West is also an important forgotten figure of technological advancement in the U.S. before and during the Civil Rights movement. This time, its West’s work on the modern day GPS system during her 42-year career at the Navy base in Dahlgren where her work was essential to her team which developed the Global Positioning System in the 1950s and 1960s.
“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.’”