Grace Gentry
Grace Gentry
| Grace Gentry | |
|---|---|
| Born | Grace Marie Hill February 15th 1938 Dallas, Texas |
| 🏳️ Nationality | United States |
| 🎓 Alma mater | San Francisco State College |
| 💼 Occupation | President of Gentry, Inc. |
| 📆 Years active | 1974–1998 |
| Known for | President and Co-Founder of the National Association of Computer Consultant Businesses and the Software Contract Business Association |
| 👩 Spouse(s) | Richard E. Gentry |
| 👶 Children | 3 |
Grace Marie Gentry (born February 15th 1938 in Dallas, Texas[1]) is known most for her contribution to the computer consultant field. Most notably she was president of Gentry, Inc., one of the first computer consulting business of it's kind. Additionally, she helped found of the National Association of Computer Consultant Businesses (NACCB).[2]
Early Life
Grace Marie Gentry was born in Dallas, Texas on February 15th 1938. She spent the first 10 years of her life in Highland Park, TX.[3] When she was eight years old her parents got divorced and soon after she moved to Gilmer, TX when her mother remarried.[1] Gentry was the oldest child with one full brother who was four years younger than her and a half sister and half brother who were from her mother's second marriage.[3] Her father, Curtis Hill, was always encouraging her to learn, study, and be curious, however her mother was the opposite and thought that "no man would marry a girl who used long, polysyllabic words."[3] When she was in high school her father sent her to The Hockaday School for boarding school in Dallas, TX. Hockaday is a prestigious all-girls preparatory academy where Gentry received a strong base education pushing her to attend Harvard University after receiving a four-year scholarship.[3] Her favorite subjects in high school were history and english, but thanks to a engaging professor, Gentry also excelled in math.[1]
Education
Gentry attended Harvard for one year in 1955 before transferring to University of Arizona in 1956 to follow her husband who joined the Air Force.[3] Officially, her degree was from Radcliffe College but all of her classes, professors, exams, etc. were from Harvard.[1] At the time Harvard, despite having co-ed classes, did not award degrees to women.[4] Gentry initially majored in Social Relations, then switched to Sociology when she moved to Arizona. Unfortunately, she had to put her education on hold when she became pregnant with her first son. Gentry was initially upset about her first son, her and her husband's original plan was to wait 10 years so that she could go to school and get her doctorate. She initially thought that her life was over because she "had never met a woman who both had children and worked".[1] After leaving the Air Force, her husband applied to get his masters at University of California, Berkeley, so they moved the family, now 2 children, to California. [1] For the first few years that they were in California, Gentry stayed at home and raised the kids and Richard, after taking a leave of absence from Berkeley, went to work at IBM. It was after a big raise at IBM, that he came home and insisted that Gentry go back to school.[3] Several of Richards friends at IBM were shocked when they heard Gentry was returning to school, saying things like "You're letting your wife do what?", to which Richard responded "I don't let my wife do anything."[3] Initially, she returned to school at UC Berkeley as a sociology major, but switched after thinking that sociology research was a waste of money and she wanted to put her efforts into something that actively made a difference.[1] She had taken a few statistics classes to meet sociology requirements, she enjoyed the classes and decided to switch her studies to statistics.[3] She was put under time pressure to get her bachelor's degree in six months in order to get a position with the Federal Government. Due to issues with her credits from Harvard not transferring, she was decided to transfer to San Francisco State College who allowed her to take 10 classes, or 30 units, in one semester. She finally got her bachelor's degree in statistics from San Francisco State College in the early 1960s.[1]
Career
Early Career
After deciding to switch to statistics, her husband suggested that she also get programming experience. So Gentry looked for programming jobs. After passing difficult exam with the Federal Government, she qualified for a management intern program and was offered a position with the Social Security Administration, Department of Health, Education and Welfare (DHEW).[3] This job was an amazing opportunity for Gentry because the government rapidly advanced people through positions until they had the equivalent of ten years of experience in two years. Eventually she would also paid $12,000 a year, which was as much as her husband was making at the time.[1] While she was open to staying in the Federal Government after the two year program, by the end of the first year she realized she wanted to leave, finding the position too bureaucratic.[3] After leaving the management program, she was offered a position from by the University of California Statewide Data Processing Department as a Business Systems Analyst in 1967. In this position she taught herself programming languages as well as designed and developed her own programming. She remained there until 1973, where during that time she was promoted to Programmer-Analyst.[3] After leaving UC Statewide, she was hired by Bank of America in the EDP Auditing Division. She was one of the first woman hired into that high of a position in the Auditing Division. Three months into her position at Bank of America she volunteered for a large project that involved auditing payroll as well as other sections throughout the entire bank. Shortly after the project was rescinded.[3] Gentry remained at Bank of America for about six months before leaving to help her husband with his new business. Before she left however, she met with the head of the department and got him to promise that if the business didn't work out, she could have her job back.[3]
Gentry, Inc.
Gentry, Inc., originally titled "Richard E. Gentry, Inc.", was started because Gentry's husband, Richard, was contacted by Alameda County to work on a large project transferring their payroll system from monthly to bi-weekly. However Alameda County couldn't hire individual contractors, they could only hire corporations. Therefore Richard decided to incorporate.[3] Right after Alameda County said that he had to hire three more programmers to assist him with this project. Gentry recommended several women that she worked with during her time at UC Statewide. The opportunity was great for these women that were hired because they were able to make $10 an hour, which was a huge amount especially for a married woman.[1] After working with Alameda County for several months, they started hiring more contractors and it became more of a business. Initially, they would ask the 10-12 people who were working for them to submit timesheets, they would then bill the client for the hours worked, they would keep $2 and pay the contractor $10. The $2 mostly covered the general fees just to keep things running.[3] Both Grace and Richard also worked as contractors during the early period of their business. Eventually, they began to diversify their clients, reach out to other business and sell this new concept of independent contractors. By about 1976, Gentry was no longer working as a contractor but running the business full time. Her husband recognized that she was already doing the work of a president so she was named president of the company.[3] In the late 1970's, Gentry, Inc. started developing their own products and created a software products division. By the early 80's the company had three divisions, a contracting division, a software products division, and a third-party products division.[2] Eventually towards the mid-nineties, they began to cycle out the products divisions and focus on the contractors again. By 1998 they had about two hundred contractors under them.[1] They eventually sold Gentry, Inc. to Personnel Group of America (PGA) on July 20th, 1998 for $12.5 million.[2] She now lives happily in retirement with her husband.[3] Grace spent her years as president of the company hiring skilled, professional programmers regardless of their gender.[2] She helped create a successful business that was one of the first of it's kind, one that uses independent contractors, paying them for each hour they worked as opposed to a salaried employee.[3]
Section 1706
A huge controversy during the time of Gentry's business was the addition of Section 1706 to the U.S. Federal Tax bill in 1986. This bill negated the previous "safe haven" rule from Section 530, which made it so that there was "reasonable basis" for a company to declare a worker as self-employed, then for tax purposes the company would be secure.[5] Section 530 was beneficial for tech companies at the time since a majority of them by the mid-1980s used independent contractors. With the creation of 1706, these tech companies that previously hired independent contractors were no longer protected against audits.[5] According to an article in The New York Times "the broader impact is that small businesses started by one entrepreneur do not have a chance to grow into mighty enterprises that can create jobs and generate more taxes.”[6] Gentry's initial reaction to the section was that "it was unfair legislation singling this particular group out and that it was misguided."[1] During the time 1706 was introduced, Gentry was president of Software Contract Business Association (SCBA), and went to DC to try and fight the bill. During this time was also when she help found NACCB. Eventually, after several years of trying to fight the bill, Gentry, Inc. shifted to payroll which fortunately they were able to do because of previous successes and security.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 Gentry, Grace. (2008). Oral history interview with Grace Gentry. Charles Babbage Institute. Retrieved from the University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy, http://hdl.handle.net/11299/107326.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "Gallery". gallery.lib.umn.edu. Retrieved 2018-04-26.
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 Johnson, Luanne. “Gentry, Grace Oral History.” Computer History Museum, Computer History Museum, 24 May 2006, www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102657985. Accessed 10 Apr. 2018.
- ↑ "Radcliffe | Harvard College". college.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2018-04-12.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Shulman, Harvey J. (2010-02-20). "Opinion | The I.R.S. vs. Tech Workers". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-04-26.
- ↑ Johnston, David Cay (1998-04-27). "How a Tax Law Helps Insure a Scarcity of Programmers". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-04-26.
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