Alumni Georgia Griffiths on Breaking Down Barriers
Griffiths had a strong desire to work at a company where she’d be able to advance in her career. So in 1989, she established her own.
“I wanted to start a company where I could succeed. And second, create a company that was fair to engineers,” said Griffiths, longtime president and CEO of the San Diego-based G2 Software Systems, which provides software development, systems engineering, project management and other services to defense, government, and commercial customers.
The company is not only woman-owned, but employee-owned. And in sharp contrast to most companies, where engineers are paid a salary for unlimited hours of work, G2 employees are paid by the hour.
“There’s no union for engineers, and no one to fight for them when it comes to wages. I went three months working 12 hours a day with no days off,” she said. “I figured I was working for 50 cents an hour.”
Griffiths says that model is working well. The 140- employee company attracts people who love what they do, and weeds out those who “want to work 30 hours and be paid for 40 hours.”
The most senior G2 employee has 26 years of service, and several others have worked there for two decades or more. Although the company hires fresh graduates, typically it’s engineers who’ve worked at other companies for a decade who most appreciate G2’s company culture.
With the trend toward offshore commercial software development, G2’s customer mix has shifted more to defense and government work. Those who work on those projects must be U.S. citizens.
Among the company’s areas of expertise is engineering for communication systems. Although many contracts are classified, one Griffiths can talk about is the Army Alert mass notification system, which is installed globally.
G2 has received Subcontractor of the Year awards from SAIC and CSC. Griffiths is the recipient of the 2013 San Diego Business Journal CEO of the Year Award, Athena San Diego’s 2014 Pinnacle Award for exemplary service, 2016 Women in Defense Plankholder Award, and 2017 San Diego Magazine Woman of the Year Award.
Griffiths says the succession of awards came as a surprise. “I was just always so busy with work that I never took a step back to see what I accomplished,” she said.
She also supports women in STEM. An advisory council member for both the CSULB and San Diego State University colleges of engineering, Griffiths has funded endowed scholarships and computer labs. In April, Griffiths will serve as a keynote speaker for the Beach Women in Engineering Conference, hosted by the CSULB College of Engineering and 100+ Women Strong.
Griffiths found her way into computer science on the advice of her uncle, a vice president at Univac. Prior to that, she’d considered being a writer. “I wanted to do something and have a career, and he asked, ‘Have you ever used a computer?’”
Her uncle also predicted computer science would offer more opportunities for women, since it was a new field. Griffiths enrolled in the four computer classes available in the CSULB Math Department and was hooked.
“It was like solving puzzles—I absolutely loved it,” she said. “I called my uncle and said, ‘Is there someone who would pay me to do this?’”
The first barrier she encountered came from a male professor. The only woman in the class, Griffiths was told she was taking a spot that could have been occupied by a man who needed to feed his family.
“The Women’s Liberation movement really started after my days in college, and I was not a flag waver.” Griffiths said. “I thought the best way to show that women could be successful was to do it.”
She credits her older brother with providing her the skills to successfully navigate male-dominated workplaces at major companies such as Bendix, Compusec, Hughes, Solar Turbines, and TRW.
At a company she will not name, Griffiths recalled a manager promising her a bonus for coming up with a money-saving idea, then reneging and saying he didn’t owe her anything. “I thought if a jerk like that could run a company, I certainly could,” Griffiths said. “The next day I quit and started a company. Adversity opens doors every time.”
She called the company G2, after her initials and her nickname during college for working on G2 systems. To those in the military, G2 also refers to intelligence.
Griffiths says computer science remains a fulfilling career for women. “It’s great for a woman who wants to focus on career. Or if they want to focus on raising a family, it’s also a good path. You can work remotely. There’s huge demand. And you can always jump back into the job market full-time after taking a break.”
