Novacoast

Eight members of the leadership team at fast-growing Novacoast in Santa Barbara, Calif., are women—including the chief operating officer, vice president of business development, and corporate counsel.

CTO Adam Gray said the company regularly struggles with finding qualified candidates, because of low university enrollment in scientific, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. He believes the "drive for engineering needs to start early."

To that end, Gray personally teaches at the science night in his county's elementary school system, where he encourages both girls and boys to get involved.

"Last year I taught Caesar cipher encryption to K-6th graders," he said. "It was a lot of fun and incredibly well-received. I essentially taught them how to pass private notes that were easy to write but tough to read without the proper key. Very simple letter-shifting symmetric encryption."

When contacted about this story, Gray was finalizing his topic for this year. In addition, Novacoast often sends employees to participate in "women in technology" sessions at the University of California at Santa Barbara. "I think we encourage everyone that will listen to get involved with STEM (my girls included)," Gray said.