Elsie Shutt

Elsie Shutt (née Goedeke, born 1928) is a pioneering American programmer and technological entrepreneur. Born in New York City, she was raised in Baltimore, Maryland. Although Shutt attributes her learning to her mother’s academic path and Baltimore’s education-forward school system, the logic-based aspects of math and science were what fascinated her. This is where Shutt’s interest in programming began. However, she soon received a Pepsi-Cola graduate fellowship, enabling her to continue her studies at Radcliffe College of Harvard University. Shutt was the second woman to earn a teaching fellowship in Radcliffe's math department. Here, she met Richard Clippinger, who hired her at Raytheon. However, this was too big a job for one freelancer; the answer, Shutt believed, was incorporating. In 1953, Shutt was hired at Raytheon, an aerospace and defense manufacturing company, where she worked on software for the Raycom computer.

In 1957, Shutt married and had a baby. She subsequently left her job. She worked as a freelance programmer from her home, and in 1958 she founded Computations Incorporated. Shutt led CompInc for more than 45 years. She frequently employed women who sought flexible programming jobs to balance family responsibilities.

Shutt later commented that “It really amazed me that these men were programmers, because I thought it was women's work!”