Worcester Business Journal

18 Worcester Business Journal | November 16, 2026 | wbjournal.com BY LIVIA GERSHON Special to WBJ F or Darlene Tucker, serving as an Army officer was a crash course in manage- ment. At just 22, she was responsible for the enlisted 18-year- olds under her command — not just getting them to do their jobs but also taking care of their needs. "You've got young kids with money for the first time, writing checks when they don't have money in the account," she said. "We had kids that never drove. We had to teach them to drive." Tucker — who, decades later, is now president of engineering firm Soli- dus Technical Solutions LLC — had enrolled in the Army ROTC while studying computer science at Purdue University. is was in the 1970s, when the Women's Army Corps was being integrated into the regular Army. So Tucker was part of the first wave of fe- male officers who had options beyond nursing, administration and finance. She chose the Army Signal Corps and, aer graduation, was sent to Germany, where she took charge of maintaining and deploying com- munications equipment. She also participated in joint exercises along- side military service members from all over Europe, practicing setting up equipment under duress. "at was a great experience, it really was," she said. "You got to see so much of Germany. It opened up so many things for me." Working in a technical field, and among Europeans who were behind the United States in gender integra- tion of the military, Tucker was oen the only woman in a room. But she said the men she served with were mostly accepting. "e military works hard to not discriminate, or at least they used to," she said. Aer leaving the service, she followed her husband to Fort Sill in Oklahoma, where she had a job on base doing soware development. Over the years that followed, she worked in various technical positions in the defense industry, eventually landing at a firm doing contract work for Raytheon. e firm was unstable, being repeatedly bought and sold, and Tucker wasn't pleased with the way it treated her and other employees. So she went to her boss at Raytheon. "He said 'Why don't you do it your- self?'" she said. So Tucker and three of her cowork- ers decided to give it a shot. Follow- ing what she'd learned in the Army, Tucker said, she sought help with things she didn't know how to do, like creating a business plan. "I learned how to do all of these things through asking questions," she said. "I had no idea how to be a CEO. I had a CEO coach." Tucker and her colleagues reached out to the small business mentoring program SCORE, found lawyers to help them out, and sent an email to former coworkers inviting them to join the new firm, which they named Solidus Technical Solutions. e company was incorporated PHOTOS | COURTESY OF SOLIDUS 'You have to delegate, and you have to trust people' For Solidus founder, taking care of employees is the mission F O C U S Darlene Tucker, founder of Solidus Technical Solutions LLC, served in the U.S. Army NOTABLE VETERANS IN BUSINESS Darlene Tucker, third from the left, with members of her leadership team at Solidus Technical Solutions LLC.

• Cover