Naval Data Automation Command

Naval Data Automation Command (NAVDAC) in Washington DC.

Back in 1969, when Joan had been in graduate school in Monterey, she had an opportunity to listen to a lecture given by Grace Hopper. In the lecture, Hopper handed out pieces of telephone wire measuring exactly 11.78 inches. That was the distance electricity could travel in a nanosecond. Ten years later when Joan was stationed at NAVDAC in Washington, she had the opportunity to get to know Grace Hopper. Joan described her as having the wonderful ability to speak of things highly technical in terms that everyone could understand.

But all was not ok with this move to Washington and the Data Processing Service Center. Joan’s office was in the basement of a building across the street from HQ. She found herself not prepared for the politics of Washington. She said, “I felt like I was in a different world. And did not like it.”

She went on, “It took me a few years to realize how much things were different in Washington versus what I called the real Navy. Her assignment was Project Officer for the consolidation of Navy financial records at the Navy Finance Center in Cleveland.

Joan said, “I did not enjoy the work. I had nothing in common with the people I worked with. Many were civilians and for the first time in my career I was not having fun, I was not being challenged and I felt I just did not fit in.”

Despite this, Rear Admiral Cullins Commander NAVDAC told Joan she would certainly be promoted to Captain and he would arrange for a very good joint duty assignment (i.e. with officers of the other services) within the Organization for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He told her that after a couple years in that assignment, she would receive orders to be the Commanding Officer of the Naval Regional Data Automation Command (NARDAC) in San Francisco.

But the following year, Joan was told that the Commanding Officer job she had been promised was going to go a man – who it turned out was less qualified than she was. She said she had no doubt in her mind that she had been cut out of the San Francisco job because she was a woman.

Instead, after she was promoted to Captain (where she was one of 17 women line officers with that rank) Joan kept her assignment as Assistant for Automation to the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and she moved to a new office in the A ring of the Pentagon.