[7][5][2] West was a computer programmer in the Dahlgren division, and a project manager for processing systems for satellite data analysis.

[16] From the mid-1970s through the 1980s, West programmed an IBM 7030 Stretch computer to deliver increasingly precise calculations for the shape of the Earth; an ellipsoid with additional undulations known as the geoid.

[8] To generate an accurate geopotential model West needed to use complex algorithms to account for variations in the gravitational, tidal, and other forces that distort Earth's shape.

[9] In 1986, West published Data Processing System Specifications for the Geosat Satellite Radar Altimeter, a 51-page technical report from the Naval Surface Weapons Center (NSWC).

This explained how to improve the accuracy of geoid heights and vertical deflection, important components of satellite geodesy.

Godfrey Weekes, commanding officer at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, described the role played by West in the development of Global Positioning System: "She rose through the ranks, worked on the satellite geodesy, and contributed to the accuracy of GPS and the measurement of satellite data.

[25] West met her husband Ira at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, where he also worked as a mathematician.

West did not have a car and could not find Dahlgren on a map, and she believed that they would reject her after the interview because of her race, so she decided to wait to hear back from other applications.

Being hired solely on her qualifications, with a salary that would eventually help her support her family, was a rare find for a black woman at that time.

In 1954, the Supreme Court had made a landmark decision on Brown vs. Board of Education, ruling that American state laws that established racial segregation in public schools were unconstitutional.

Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan were still at large, and the prospect of moving to a rural neighborhood in a southern state was daunting for an unmarried black woman.

In Boomtown, where married people lived on base, she was part of a club of black women who discussed civil rights topics.

[27]: 97, 105 [28] West continues to prefer using paper maps over GNSS-based navigation systems,[29] saying, "I'm a doer, hands-on kind of person.