- Date Of Birth: March 5, 1928
- Date Of Death: May 17, 2022
- State: Pennsylvania
Leon A. Murphy, a pioneer in advancing computer technology at one of the world’s largest steel manufacturers, died on Tuesday at St. Luke’s Hospice House in Lower Saucon Township, Pa. He was 94.
Lee, as he was known, worked for nearly 37 years at Bethlehem Steel Corp., first hired in Boston as a civil engineer and retiring as manager of production development at its corporate headquarters in Bethlehem, Pa., where had lived since 1962.
Assigned to the company’s rebar manufacturing division, Lee’s career took a pivotal turn in the 1970s after he enrolled in classes at IBM and came to appreciate the transformative power of technology. He soon moved to Bethlehem’s computer development division, where he helped apply new technologies across many of its operations.
The trade journal Steel World Quarterly described Bethlehem’s evolution from a “low-tech to high-tech” company as revolutionary and credited Lee with helping leverage the fast-changing tech landscape.
Significantly, Lee not only worked to modernize Bethlehem’s plants but he also helped save countless jobs by developing interactive training videos that allowed steelworkers to individually learn skills needed in the changing workplace.
Under Lee’s direction, that same technology was made available to community groups across the Lehigh Valley to teach teenagers about drug and alcohol abuse. In a newspaper interview at the time, Lee said he was eager to help youths learn the power of making good choices through engaging multimedia.
Lee’s interest in training also influenced his leadership as a captain with the U.S.Coast Guard Reserve, where he spent more than three decades focused in part on training programs for new reservists. He served active duty with the Coast Guard during both World War II and the Korean War.
An accomplished and competitive sailor, he said he chose the Coast Guard directly out of high school because he admired its patrol boats, which had rescued his Hustler sailboat – named Hell’s Bells – during squalls in Boston Harbor. “I needed to get towed a few times,” he recalled.
In June 1945, his first assignment was stoking the engines on a frigate that was on weather patrol in the North Atlantic. Devout at a young age, one of Lee’s favorite religious stories involved the frigate encountering a ferocious storm at sea. With the ship nearly split into two and taking on water, he was deployed deep into the bilge to unclog the pumps that were keeping it afloat. The frigate eventually reached safety in Iceland, but only after Lee experienced the scare of a lifetime, and, he explained, he learned the power of prayer and God’s love.
The sixth of seven children born to John and Grace Murphy in Winthrop, Mass., Lee played football at Winthrop High School, where he earned the nickname “Crusher,” and he competed at the Winthrop Yacht Club, where he collected a trove of medals and trophies. He was only able to attend college thanks to the GI bill, supplemented by student loans. He told the story of leaving for college and his father handing him what money the family could spare – 25 cents to cover his bus fare to the train station.
After graduating in 1950 with a degree in civil engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, he attended the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn. He remained on active duty until 1954, when he moved to the reserves, and the following year he took a design job at Bethlehem Steel’s reinforcing bar fabrication shop in Boston. In 1956, he received a master’s degree in industrial management from Boston University.
After retiring from Bethlehem Steel in 1992, he founded Quantum Improvement International Inc., a consulting business that developed computer and training systems in partnership with the Ben Franklin program at Lehigh University. Bethlehem Steel closed in 2003.
Lee and his late wife of 70 years, Bertha, lived most recently at the Moravian Village retirement community in Bethlehem, and spent 55 years in the Levering Manor section of north Bethlehem, where they raised their four children.Throughout their lives, Bert and Lee were inseparable. They were raised on the same street, and Bert’s brother, Edward Bryant, was Lee’s best friend.
Active in many aspects of the community, Lee was a committee chairman with Boy Scout Troop 62; treasurer of the First Church of Christ, Scientist; a member of the Masonic Lodge 283, and a district chairman with the Republican Party. He also attended East Hills Moravian Church.
He is survived by his children, John and his wife Susanna of Rio Rancho, N.M; Linda and her husband Phil Cantelmi of Denver, N.C.; Dean and Grace Miller of Maplewood, N.J, and Leon of Bonney Lake, Wash.; six grandchildren, Orion, Christian, Justin and Devin Murphy, and Alex and Christina Cantelmi; and one great grandchild, Lacey Murphy.
