Grace Gentry reviews her personal background, how she met and married Richard Gentry, how she pursued her education after marriage and three children, and how she got into the data processing field. In the early 1970s, after Richard had become a freelance computer consultant, she joined him at Gentry, Incorporated , initially working as a computer consultant as well as having the primary responsibility for running their business. After a couple of successful years with large contracts for the County of Alameda in Oakland, CA, she began to work fulltime at managing and building the business. Gentry, Inc., was a pioneer in developing a business model that uses independent contractors paid on a "per hour worked" basis instead of salaried employees. Under Grace's direction, Gentry, Inc., built a substantial customer base and also expanded the business into developing their own software products and into the turn-key implementation of hardware/software solutions for their customers. The transcript includes clarifying comments, in brackets, inserted by Grace after the interview was completed and an addendum she wrote describing the sale of Gentry, Inc. to Personnel Group of America.
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Software business history; Gentry, Grace; Gentry, Richard; Gentry Incorporated; IBM; Alameda County, CA; UC Statewide Data Processing; Systems Dynamics; Women in programming; Women in business; independent contractor; Software Contracting Businesses Association (SCBA); Section 1706; HP3000; HP1000; REX (Report Expediter); Programmer-less Application Language (PAL); Monterey Bay Aquarium; MCBA software; Sippl, Roger; Dunbar, Dave; Drudge, Ed; Personnel Group of America (PGA)
