It actually is rocket science

We're happy to have Sarah Stebbins, a former YWCA Women of Achievement honoree, as our second guest blogger. Sarah was a pioneer for women in non-traditional fields of employment when she entered the field of aeronautics. She now resides with her husband, Charles, in Charleston and enjoys spending time with her family.

Fifty years ago, college-educated women whom I knew were generally teachers or nurses. My mother, who had put her Latin/English teaching career “on hold” to have a family, suggested that Pharmacy might be a good profession for a woman and that I should consider it. My problem was that a Pharmacy major required additional “dreaded” high school math courses over those in the regular College Preparatory program. I took those courses and, much to my surprise, I loved them… and decided to major in Math instead of going into Pharmacy!

At WVU in 1957, I did not really consider myself a pioneer, even though I was the only woman in most of my math classes. I do remember one other female Math major in my class year. I feel lucky that no one at WVU or in the workplace ever made me feel out of place as a woman. (However, skipping ahead, early in my career the Colorado Springs paper ran a feature article about me—as a woman in a man’s field.)

Now, my dilemma upon graduation was in knowing what a Mathematician would do for a living. I was marrying an Air Force officer who would be reassigned and moved every few years. Teaching Math would be a flexible option, but we arrived in Pasadena CA too late in the school year for me to be hired. Fortunately for me, the computer and space ages were emerging in isolated locations and a limited number of people were trained to program them. I was lucky to be in one of those places and to be hired by the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) that had one of the very first large mainframe computers. Exciting projects at JPL included sending unmanned Ranger spacecraft to the Moon and Mariner spacecraft to Mars. There I gained the computer skills that served me throughout my 40-year career.

Partly because there were so few scientific computer programmers, both times that I “retired” to have a baby and become a stay-at-home Mom, I was asked to return to work part-time for a new project. Other career breaks occurred due to the 27 years of military reassignments. Because working part-time was important to me while my kids were young, in Washington DC I had to wait a year and a half for a position to become open. But, it was well worth the wait… the position was at the Naval Research Lab (NRL) and the Navy’s flexibility made it possible for me to spend 25 years there.

The NRL work was perhaps the most interesting of all in that my Branch Head had helped design the Global Positioning System (GPS). Very precise clocks and timing form the heart of the GPS and placing atomic clocks on board the satellites was my boss’ idea. NRL built and flew several test satellites with increasingly more precise atomic clocks. Among my other assignments, I wrote the mainframe computer software that tested those orbiting clocks… and later tested the clocks on the actual system satellites. It was extremely interesting work back when we thought the system was strictly for military use, but it is overwhelming to see how important GPS has become today in all facets of the civilian world, too.

In spite of the hurdles, I managed to have an interesting and rewarding career in what was, at first, a non-traditional field for a woman. And, today, it is difficult to find a field that excludes women!