Grace Murray Hopper

Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper

Grace Murray Hopper (-1992) was a pioneering computer scientist and a rear admiral in the United States Navy. In the technical area, she is best known for the development of COBOL and other programming languages. Personally, she was admired as a leader, and mentor of creative thinking from high school to the Navy high command. A Burke-class destroyer of the U.S. Navy, USS Hopper (DDG-70) is named in her honor.

Creative thinking

She surrounded herself with reminders about thinking unconventionally. On her office wall was a clock that ran counterclockwise.

When computer speeds broke into the microsecond range, she commanded her staff to "bring her a microsecond." Puzzled, she eventually explained she wanted to see one, and sent them off to cut pieces of wire that were the length that light traveled in one microsecond; she gave these out at her presentations. She climaxed that part of the presentation by having a strong member of her staff stumble onto the stage, carrying a large, heavy reel of wire: the distance light traveled in a millisecond.

Navy

In the Navy, she was known as "Grand Lady of Software," "Amazing Grace" and "Grandma Cobol".

Commissioning and commemoration

Rear Adm. Hopper retired from the Naval Reserve in January 1967, but was recalled to active duty in August 1967 by President Lyndon B. Johnson because of her much-needed expertise in applied computer science. Rear Adm. Hopper retired a second time in August 1986. She passed away on Jan. 1, 1992. This is the first time since World War II, and only the second time in Naval history, that a warship has been named for a woman from the Navy’s own ranks.