Michael “Mike” Ward Murray, age 80, died October 8, 2026. Born October 28, 1945, in Jacksonville, Florida, the seventh of twelve children, he was proceeded in death by his parents Virginia Horgan Murray and Julian Rollins Murray, Sr, and siblings, Jean Murray Offan, Julian Rollings Murray, Jr, Virginia Murray, John Tyler Murray II, C. Joseph Murray, Robert Murray, and Patrick Murray.
He is survived by his wife, Karen Fontaine Murray; his three children, Shannon Murray Johnson, K. Michelle Murray-Wortman, and James Murray; his five grandchildren, Destiny Wortman Jackson, Seth Wortman, Megan Johnson, Tessa Murray-Ling, and Aaron Murray-Wortman; his two great-grandchildren, Koda Jackson and H. Crue Wortman; his siblings, William Murray, Lewis Murray, Stephen Murray, Sr. and Margaret Murray Mitchell; and his beloved sons-in-law, Terry Johnson and Richard Wortman, Jr.
Mike graduated from Jesuit High School in New Orleans, LA, then completed a bachelor’s in mathematics from LSU (taking budding “computer” classes as often as he could.) He landed his first job in 1968 with IBM in Huntsville, AL as a sub-contractor for NASA. He was hired, along with several others new coders, for a project to adapt the IBM 360 computer to work on the Saturn V rockets. They were tasked with creating new code to fix timing issues in the software…and did. His three years’ work with IBM lead him to M&S Computing where he spent the next eight years improving Tectonic screens by implementing interactive graphics and made over 500 million for the company by creating new software for Intergraph. This software had many applications and lead to contracts with companies such as AT&T. In 1990, he joined Lockheed Martin on the first of many private contracts for MSFC. His most notable projects include work for AXAF/Chandra (Public Service Medal 2000), Europa Science Mission (Group Achievement Honor Award 2016), FPPO Resource Management (Group Achievement Honor Award 2017 where he helped with 72 distributions of project funding) and Orion (Group Achievement Honor Award 2019). His final six-year contract had him contributing to specific equipment functions for Moon to Mars (M2M)/ Artemis Systems Engineering & Integration (SE&I) as well as Budget Analyst for this project up until the week before his death. He was a dedicated, brilliant man who has made his family and country so very proud!
There will be a memorial service at the Space and Rocket Center to be announced later. If you would like to receive notice, please email Michelle at meshemail6@gmail.com with your name and how you knew him.
If you would like to honor Mike, please send donations in his name to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital – his love for children, particularly babies, ran deep.
