LITTLE ROCK, Ark.— Raye Montague, a trailblazing black woman from Arkansas who revolutionized the way the Navy designed ships, has died.

She was 83.

Montague developed a computer program that created rough drafts of ship specifications. She told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2012 that the program allowed the Navy to cut the time it took to build a ship’s draft design from two years to 18 hours and 26 minutes.

She fought discrimination throughout her career. When a co-worker wouldn't show her how to operate a computer, she taught herself.

She said: "I had to run circles around people, but when they found out I really knew what I was talking about, they came to respect me."

The newspaper reports she died Wednesday at a hospital in Little Rock.

Her son, David Montague, says his mother died of congestive heart failure.

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