The Dr. Gladys West Scholarship Program
A scholarship program supported by the Trimble Foundation to empower a new generation of stars pursuing careers in technology.
Born in 1930, Dr. West knew from a young age that education would be the key to moving forward from her family farm in rural Virginia. A scholarship recipient herself, Dr. West earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Mathematics at Virginia State University. Hired as a mathematician in 1956 with Virginia's Naval Proving Ground, she was one of only four African American employees at the time.
With her intelligence and computational skills recognized, Dr. West quickly climbed the ranks and became project manager for the Seasat radar altimetry project in the 1960s. Knowledge gained through that work enabled her to program an IBM computer to calculate an accurate geodetic Earth model the essential building block for GPS.
Known today as the hidden figure who helped invent GPS, Dr. West is one of the reasons why consumers can receive driving directions from a phone or tag a photo location on social media. And why professionals in industrial markets such as construction, transportation and agriculture can leverage geospatial technology to realize significant improvements in productivity, quality, safety, transparency and sustainability to transform the way they work with precision.
