"It's always easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission." Quote Grace Murray Hopper
Grace Murray Hopper was a big hit at the Navy Micro Conference. She loved to tell the story of how the conference started because it supported her famous saying, "It's always easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission." Here's the story: A sailor in the Pacific fleet built a computer aboard ship. A picture of the computer appeared in Navy Times where a rear admiral saw it. He wrote the sailor a letter of encouragement. The sailor decided to answer the rear admiral directly, telling him exactly what was wrong with computers in the Pacific fleet and what could be done using microcomputers. (The computer mentality at that time was geared around mainframes.)As events evolved, the sailor was transferred to the Navy Regional Data Automation Center (NARDAC) in Norfolk, Virginia (now called Naval Computer and Telecommunications Area Master Station LAN) where his technical expertise could be fully utilized. He was part of the team that birthed the first microcomputer conference in 1982. A five point plan was developed that centered around the microcomputer contracts. It provided other needed services for users, including the ability to communicate via a conference.
What started off as a small seminar for 400 people the first year has grown into a full-blown conference, averaging over a thousand attendees every year. It wasn't until the third year that the conference became completely legal.
Grace Hopper was a keynote speaker for the conference in its earlier years, drawing a standing-room-only crowd. Although she had a standard keynote speech, stressing the same message over and over, people were fascinated by her. Her lectures challenged management to keep pace. The Navy Micro Conference still goes on today, alternating between the east and west coasts, still stressing Hopper's unique message to the world: Be innovative, open minded and give people the freedom to try new things.
Hopper enchanted her audiences with tales of the computer evolution and her uncanny ability to predict the trends of the future. Many of her predictions came true right before her eyes as industry built more powerful, more compact machines and developed the operating systems and software that matched her visions. Some of her more innovative ideas include using computers to track the lifecycle of crop eating locusts, building a weather computer, managing water reserves so that everyone would have a fair share and tracking the waves at the bottom of the ocean. She also thought every ship should have a computer that the crew could play with and learn to use.
Meeting Grace Murray Hopper
I (Elizabeth Dickason) never met Grace Hopper, but I did see her at Navy Micro '87. She passed by with her entourage, smoking a filterless Lucky Strike cigarette as she often did. You could hear people whispering, "There she is," as she passed by. My first impression of her was that of a friendly, grandmotherly-type woman who looked almost frail. Those words don't exactly describe the public side of Grace Hopper. She was described by one reporter as a "feisty old salt who gave off an aura of power." This held true in her dealings with top brass, subordinates and interviewers - always interested in getting to the bottom line.
See? We told you the computer could do all that! - Quote Grace Murray Hopper
One dream Hopper didn't fulfill was living to the age of 94. She wanted to be here December 31, 1999 for the New Year's Eve to end all New Year's Eve parties. She also wanted to be able to look back at the early days of the computer and say to all the doubters, "See? We told you the computer could do all that!"Her insight into the future will stay with us even though she's gone. Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper was laid to rest with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.
