LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) - Raye Montague knew at age 7 that she wanted to be an engineer. But because of segregation, she couldn't study engineering in school. So with a business degree in hand, she took a job with the Navy in 1956.
"I marched off the day after graduation and went to work for the Navy," Montague said.
She would go on to pioneer computer-aided design for the Navy and engineer the first computer-generated rough draft of a U.S. naval ship. She was an internationally registered professional engineer for the military branch.
She is one of eight inductees into the Arkansas Women's Hall of Fame for 2018, along with Mary Steenburgen and others.
To say she designed the first computer-generated rough draft of a U.S. naval ship is impressive, but it sells Montague's work short. She is recognized as a "hidden figure," a term brought to prominence by the Oscar-nominated film "Hidden Figures."
Here's what the Encyclopedia of Arkansas has to say about her:
Montague’s career spans the development of computer technologies, from the UNIVAC I, the world’s first commercially available computer, down to modern computers. She successfully revised the first automated system for selecting and printing ship specifications and produced the first draft for the FFG-7 frigate (the Oliver Hazard Perry–class, or Perry-class, ship) in eighteen hours. This was the first ship designed by computer.
She worked for the Navy for 33 years and held the civilian equivalent of captain.