Photo Courtesy of David Montague
“Aim for the stars, at the very worst, you’ll land on the moon”
(Raye Montague, 2017)

Raye Jean Jordan Montague was born January 21, 1935 in Little Rock, Arkansas. She is an African American female. From the age of seven she knew that she wanted to become an engineer, after her grandfather had taken her to see the mini German submarine that washed up over the Carolina's shoreline. Ms. Montague was intrigued by all of the buttons and dials. Little Raye then asked the docent:

"What do you have to know to do this? Montague recalled, He said, ‘Oh, you’d have to be an engineer, but you don’t have to worry about that.'"  
(Raye Montague, 2017)

Hired by the United States Navy in 1956 as an entry level clerk typist, she was the first person credited for designing a rough draft of a U.S. Navy ship using the UNIVAC 1 computer.  She achieved this with a Bachelor of Science degree in business not the engineering degree she hoped to obtain.
 

Video Courtesy of David Montague
Photo Credit: rrmerritt.com
​​Downtown Little Rock
Photo Credit:  Computer History info
​World War II Era Submarine:
​ photograph by Daniel Hagerman