Raye Montague

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Raye Montague, 2017

Raye Montague (born January 25, 1935 in Little Rock , Arkansas , † October 10, 2018 there ) was an American marine engineer. She wrote a computer program that revolutionized ship design in the United States Navy and was the first person to design a ship with a computer system.

life and work

Jordan was the daughter of Rayford Jordan and Flossie Graves Jordan and graduated from Merrill High School in 1952. She graduated from Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical & Normal College (now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff) and received her Bachelor of Science degree in Business in 1956 because the University of Arkansas engineering program did not accept African American students at the time.

In 1956 she was hired as a typist in the United States Navy in Washington. There she sat next to a UNIVAC-I computer from the 1950s and learned how engineers operate the computer. When all the engineers were sick, she jumped in to run the machine. She attended evening computer programming school while continuing to work during the day. She was appointed as a computer systems analyst at the Naval Ship Engineering Center and later worked as a program director for Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA).

She was the first female program manager for ships in the U.S. Navy, overseeing 250 employees and the procurement of computer-aided design and manufacturing equipment for more than 100,000 employees. She worked on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Navy's first helicopter attack ship. She revolutionized the way naval ships and submarines were designed by computers and was best known for her work during the Vietnam War , when President Richard Nixon gave the Navy two months to develop a ship design. President Richard M. Nixon wanted the Navy to produce ships faster, so he heard about their performance, and sent word to them to come up with a rough draft of a ship. She got all the staff she needed and an unlimited budget. Although Montague's supervisor only gave her a month to draft the specifications, she created a draft in just 18 hours and 26 minutes (at that time it usually took about two years to draft a ship). Your design established a new class of guided missile - frigates of the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate , named after the leading ship USS Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG-7) . The frigates replaced the destroyers of World War II and complemented the Knox-class frigates of the 1960s. For this achievement, she received the Navy's Meritorious Civilian Service Award in 1972 . The Navy began using their system to design their ships and submarines. She became a consultant for government agencies, the automotive industry and taught at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland . Her last naval project was the Seawolf nuclear submarine and she retired in 1990.

She was married three times, in 1955 to Weldon A. Means, in 1965 to David H. Montague, and in 1973 to James Parrott. When her third marriage ended, she used the name Montague again.

Raye Montague around 1970

Memberships

Awards (selection)

  • 1972: Meritorious Civilian Service Award, US Navy
  • 1978: Society of Manufacturing Engineers Achievement Award
  • 1988: National Computer Graphics Association Award for the Advancement of Computer Graphics
  • 2018: Arkansas Women's Hall of Fame

literature

  • Jimmy Cunningham, Donna Cunningham: African Americans of Pine Bluff and Jefferson County. Arcadia Pub, 2013, ISBN 978-0-7385-9884-0 .

Web links

Commons : Raye Montague  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Montague, Raye
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jordan, Raye Jean (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American marine engineer
DATE OF BIRTH January 25, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Little Rock , Arkansas
DATE OF DEATH October 10, 2018
Place of death Little Rock , Arkansas