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Irma M. Wyman (January 31, 1928 - November 17, 2015) was an early computer engineer and the first woman to become vice president of Honeywell, Inc. She was a systems thinking tutor and was the first female CIO of Honeywell, Inc., then a Fortune 100 company.

Academic life

In 1945, Wyman received a Regents Scholarship and was accepted into the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan as one of seven female students. To supplement her scholarship, she worked as a switchboard operator and waitress.

At the time, women in engineering programs received little encouragement and support. While her grades qualified her for membership in Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society, she received only a "Women's Badge", since the society did not admit women at the time. Wyman graduated with a Bachelor of Science/EM degree in 1949, one of two women in her class.

Career

Computing Future Thought Leadership

While still a junior in college, Wyman worked on a missile guidance project at the Willow Run Research Center. To calculate trajectory, they used mechanical calculators. She visited the U.S. Naval Proving Ground where Grace Hopper was working on similar problems and discovered they were using a prototype of a programmable Mark II computer developed at Harvard University. She became interested in computers and later recalled that "I became an enthusiastic pioneer in this new technology and it led to my life's career."

After graduation, she joined a start-up company that was eventually acquired by Honeywell Information Systems. She moved to Minneapolis and began a long management career at Honeywell, eventually serving as chief information officer. She became vice president of Honeywell Corporate Information Management (CIM) before retiring in 1990.

Wyman then began a second career as archdeacon in the Minnesota Diocese of the Episcopal Church where she coached servant leadership, retiring again after ten years as Archdeacon of the Diocese of Minnesota.

Wyman supported research and planning as a thought leader in futures studies. As an aside to this, she contended to an interviewer in 1979, that

it's just as important to know when to ignore all the careful planning and seize an opportunity.

Wyman endowed the Irma M. Wyman Scholarship at the University of Michigan's Center for the Education of Women to support women in engineering, computer science and related fields, and she endowed two Irma M. Wyman internships at the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library for women who are juniors and seniors at College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University. Irma's persistent advocacy for women in computer science and leadership reflects those of her early career mentor, Grace Hopper:

The most important thing I've accomplished ... is training young people. They come to me, you know, and say, 'Do you think we can do this?' I say, "Try it." And I back 'em up. They need that. I keep track of them as they get older and I stir 'em up at intervals so they don't forget to take chances.

Awards and honors

• Michigan Engineering Alumni Society Medal - 2001
• Honorary Doctor of Engineering, University of Michigan - 2007

Quote

We never get a second chance to make a first impression. (1983–1987)

When sponsoring Honeywell's innovative Corporate Information Management Information Security Awareness Program (ISAP).

See also

• Harvard Mark II
• Women in computing
• Women in engineering

References

1. "Center for the Education of Women + at the University of Michigan".
2. ^ "Irma Wyman (1928-)". Women in the History of Computing Technology. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2011-05-28.
3. Gilbert, Lynn (December 10, 2012). Particular Passions: Grace Murray Hopper. Women of Wisdom Series (1st ed.). New York City: Lynn Gilbert Inc. ISBN 978-1-61979-403-0.
4. "Irma Wyman (1928-2015)". Alumnae & Pioneer of Women in Engineering, Passed Away. Archived from the original on 2017-02-11. Retrieved 2017-02-08.

External links

"Oral history interview with Irma M. Wyman, 1992". Honeywell archive, Minnesota Historical Society. Retrieved 2017-02-08.

"NSWC Dalgren Division". U.S. Naval Proving Ground. Retrieved 2017-02-08.

• Scientists from Saint Paul, Minnesota
• American women computer scientists
• American computer scientists
• 1928 births
• 2015 deaths
• University of Michigan College of Engineering alumni
• American women business executives
• Chief information officers
• 20th-century American Episcopalians
• 20th-century American women
• 21st-century American women