Happy Birthday Admiral Grace Hopper!
Admiral Grace Murray Hopper was born on December 9, 1906, in New York, New York. The story of her brilliance and her life is inspiring. She exemplified perseverance. She didn’t make it into Vassar on her first try, so a year later, she reapplied and got in. She wasn’t accepted into the Navy Reserves with her first application, so three years later, she reapplied and was accepted. When she worked as a developer for Eckert-Mauchly and proposed her idea for a compiler, they rejected her idea. So, she wrote an academic paper about it. It would be one of many. When Remington Rand bought Eckert-Mauchly, they moved forward with her idea. She persevered, and she never stopped learning.
This interview on 60-Minutes is one of my favorite Admiral Hopper interviews. Her face just lights up when she talks about her commitment to the U.S. Navy. Her passion and obligation to her endeavors, along with her forward-looking outlook, was indeed a game-changer in the early computer industry.