Patricia S. Duthler

Patricia Duthler has enjoyed several enriching careers, one of which was in the field of computers. While employed in the Washington, D.C., area in the 1980s, she was laid off from a project management job in the nonprofit sector. She used this opportunity to redirect her vocation and enrolled in a data processing program at a community college, with concurrent participation in its cooperative education program. Patricia trained as a junior programmer at several U.S. Department of Defense installations and had the distinct pleasure of hearing Admiral Grace Hopper speak to an assembly of computer professionals. Upon completing her degree, she earned a job as systems analyst with a military contractor and gradually worked up to senior systems analyst while employed by corporations like Deloitte. With previous international experience, Patricia led teams that assisted Latin American governments with the design of their large-scale computer systems. Other clients included a telecommunications company, the International Monetary Fund, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Patricia particularly enjoyed the strategic planning, structured approach, and complex functional interrelationships that characterized the process of computer systems development. Patricia served as officer for the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery and nearly completed her Masters of Information Systems Technology at George Washington University before being summoned to Grand Rapids to join the family’s business enterprise.