TUCSON, AZ, September 24, 2020 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present Dale N. Murray, BSEE, MSICS, with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Dale Murray celebrates many years of experience in his professional network, and has been noted for technical excellence, achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes he has accrued in his field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Mr. Murray began pushing the limits of the envelope and practicing engineering at about the age of four, in his father's workshop on the 90-acre farm in North Carolina where he was born the younger of two sons. While his father and 5-year-older brother were out farming, he was in the shop building toy models of all the implements his father used. He was too short to reach the vice except for the sliding handle that allowed all movement from its bottom half. He then climbed up on the workbench, sat behind the vice, and drilled, carved, and hammered out his toys. He spent his nickels buying nails rather than candy at the local hardware store.
Having always harbored an interest in engineering, Mr. Murray demonstrated a home-made battery powered electric motor made from nails, masking tape, and wire to his 7th-grade peers. In the 11th grade he purchased and constructed a stereo hi-fi, phonograph amplifier with AM and FM stereo receiver from Knight Kit, and from then on, he knew that he wanted to be an electrical engineer. However, he did win numerous awards through the Future Farmers of America (FFA) program in high school.
He pursued an education out of state at Clemson University, obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering in 1967 with specialization in digital systems engineering, using a slide rule he cannot read today! Upon graduation he was planning to work for IBM and go to graduate school, but his country was at war in Vietnam. He wanted to help, but not "tote'n a rifle through a rice patty" on the other side of the world. Mr. Murray was recruited by a civil service Product Assurance Department Head, looking for engineering candidates to work at the U.S. Army Missile Command (USAMICOM) at Redstone Arsenal (RSA) in Huntsville, Alabama. He canceled his arrangements with IBM to go to summer school and to graduate in December so he could take the civil service position at Redstone Arsenal with a draft deferment and the promise to attend graduate school as part of the job description. Because of either of his SAT scores or graduating in the top quarter of his class, he started working in civil service with the equivalent of a Master's degree. Five other EE students from Clemson were also invited to begin their careers at RSA.
Mr. Murray was appointed the leader of a team to engineer, design, build, operate, and maintain a state-of-the-art automated (computer controlled) test system (ATS). It was in December 1967 and the office had just purchased the first Hewlett Packard commercial (mini) computing system (HP-2116A). Mr. Murray proposed and executed an architectural concept that was later published and popularized by someone else as "Object Oriented Design" (OOD). The mission was a complete success, but organizational changes required the ATS hardware to be turned in to salvage and all the developed software disposed in the dumpster. Mr. Murray experienced his first Reduction in Force (RIF) shortly thereafter.
Between 1967 and 1980, Mr. Murray served as an electrical, electronics, and general engineer in the U. S. Army Aviation and Missile Command at RSA in Huntsville, Alabama. He subsequently accepted a promotion to a GS-13 Computer Specialist, as a senior project officer for the U.S. Army Institute for Research in Management Information and Computer Sciences (AIRMICS) a research branch of the U.S. Army Computer Systems Command located on the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta, Georgia, from 1980 to 1984. He performed research in distributed computing systems for the Army. With his leadership his first assigned project became of significant interest to be the first one from that office to be published in the Georgia Tech student newspaper. During this time, Mr. Murray, as part of his job duties, completed his graduate studies at the Georgia Institute of Technology, earning the degree of Master of Science in Information and Computer Science (MSICS) in 1983. While at AIRMICS Mr. Murray was part of the (working) approval committee representing his government research group in the development and approval of the first Ethernet Standard, IEEE 802.3 CSMA-CD (Carrier Sense, Multiple Access/Collision Detection) network. Ethernet has evolved as the basis of all internet communications today.
He departed the government as a GS-14 Computer Scientist after 17 years for the lack of job security without the Veteran's status. He quickly learned defense contractors could earn a higher salary as a Subject Matter Expert (SME). He spent the following three decades in a number of Scientist, Systems Engineering and Analyst capacities with several top-notch defense contractors; including TRW Inc., General Research Corporation (GRC), Hughes Aircraft Company (HAC), Raytheon Missile Systems, Modern Technology Solutions, Inc. (MTSI), Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. (BAH), and a couple of other lesser known defense contractors.
Mr. Murray was in charge of installation and testing of a large command and control center for a big war game simulation system. The project was so successful the office decided to install a similar system in El Paso, Texas. While he was there participating in free dance lessons at a country-western bar, he met his future wife Alma from Juarez, Mexico; when he needed a partner for the Texas Two-Step. She spoke some English, and was very sweet and charming. He immediately informed her he had had a previous girl friend in El Paso while he lived in Huntsville, and was not interested in repeating that dance lesson. But they kept showing up together for dance lessons and he finally made the best decision of his life. He asked her out to dinner. They got married in El Paso less than a year later and she accompanied him back to Huntsville.
He was negotiating the final salary numbers to join Raytheon Missile Systems also in Huntsville, when the "merger" with HAC was announced. He immediately transitioned into Raytheon and began work. Soon Raytheon announced a big consolidation of major USA Raytheon and former HAC assets to the Howard Hughes build facility in Tucson, AZ. Mr. Murray received a half year's salary as a signing bonus, and off to Tucson they went. While there, he supported the Navy's Tomahawk missile systems. The Generator Regulator sub-assemblies in storage began to reveal severe test failures. That caused much concern because they were the same version and vintage installed in most of the missiles deployed in the field, especially the nuclear tipped versions. Mr. Murray was chosen to lead a team with all of Raytheon's resources he needed to immediately determine the severity of the problem and its impact on fielded missiles. Mr. Murray outlined the processes required and in just a few weeks, with help from destructive testing and analysis, laboratory testing, modeling and simulations, and statistical prediction groups, he determined the missiles in the field would not have to be recalled. But the scheduled periodic re-certification process would have to be changed to include lab testing of the Gen-Reg sub-assemblies (previously returned to service without any testing) and replace any failed units with the newer Gen-Reg sub-assemblies from stock. He had to give daily progress reports that went all the way up the Raytheon and Navy chains of command. He received a cash award and several luncheon rewards (with each team) he had chosen to help resolve the problem.
He experienced another major career setback when 800 engineers were laid off by Raytheon in 2002. After a year unsuccessfully searching the Tucson area, he accepted a position in Washington, D.C., where he had refused hundreds of offers to relocate from Huntsville.
After five amazing years in the USA Missile Defense Agency working Top Secret and above, Booz Allan Hamilton Inc. recruited him to return to Huntsville to support the USA Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) working on a TS-SCI satellite communications system. Two years later (2010) that office decided to terminate the BAH portion of the program to reduce costs; but they made it clear they wanted Mr. Murray's continued technical support. Mr. Murray formed his own Minority, Woman Owned, Small Business Company with his wife from Mexico. The business was named Defense Systems Engineering, LLC. He continued to support SMDC for 2 more years as a SME technical consultant through a different aerospace subcontractor.
Mr. Murray had always dreamed of getting his pilot's license, but the time and cost always seemed out of reach. He discovered the Huntsville Soaring Club and made a decision to go for it. He soloed in August 1989 where he set a club record of 37 minutes in the air earning the Soaring Society of America badges A and B on the same flight. He could have stayed up longer but he knew another student pilot had reserved the glider for the next 1-hour slot; so he came down earlier than he could have! He enjoyed soaring for the next 10 years.
Mr. Murray reluctantly retired from his 46-year systems engineering, Department of Defense career after the last two successful years operating his own business as President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company they organized in Huntsville, AL. They relocated with both of their companies back to their custom dream home in 2014 that they had designed and built together from 1999 to 2001 in Tucson, AZ. Dale was also the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for Alma's small business "Soul Massage Therapy, LLC" founded April 2009 in Huntsville, AL.
As a respected voice in his field, he has contributed numerous articles to professional journals throughout his distinguished career. Likewise, Mr. Murray has maintained his professional affiliation with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He previously participated in the Association for Computing Machinery, the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, the Soaring Society of America and the Tucson Blues Society.
Currently he enjoys the blessed life God has provided him and Alma. They enjoy their beautiful Santa Fe home on a 3½ acre primitive desert lot just outside of the city limits, with a deck and a view of the whole Tucson valley from Picacho Peak (halfway to Phoenix) to the Air Force's military bone yard where you can read the plane's tail numbers with a pair of binoculars. Mr. Murray now spends most of his time in his oversized garage workshop with tools and equipment he started collecting in 1972 for his retirement.
Mr. Murray's life long enjoyment includes his audio/video systems and home computing systems. He always has blues music playing in stereo everywhere: stereo in the dual master shower, stereo surround-sound in the master bathroom, stereo across the roof deck, stereo across the north patio, and many stereo speakers across his garage workshop.
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