Growing up in Aston and graduating from Sun Valley High School, Patricia Woody Reeves never thought twice about following her brother into engineering.

But the Navy submarine captain who rose to chief engineer of the U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center at the Philadelphia Navy Yard soon found herself without many female peers.

“Young girls and women need more role models, and it’s my life work to do that,” Reeves said in a Philadelphia Inquirer report by Erin Arvedlund.

The now-retired Reeves is doing that through her Glen Mills-based PWR Consulting, which aims to carry on the work she started in the Navy.

“When I began my career in 1982, there were approximately 10 women in STEM fields, out of about 1,200 people at NAVSEA,” she said. “When I retired in 2016, there were approximately 300 women in STEM fields — primarily engineering but also mathematicians, chemists, computer scientists — out of about 1,400.”

PWR Consulting has started by hosting events like “Women in Defense, Liberty Chapter Networking.”

“Our mission is to empower and advance women in all areas of the defense industry, academia, government, and the armed forces,” Reeves said. “WID provides personal and professional growth through networking, mentoring, career development, and educational programs.”

Read more of the story behind PWR Consulting in the Philadelphia Inquirer here.