Mary Frances Walker

DURHAM – Mary Frances Walker, aged 65, died November 25th, 2019 of ovarian cancer at her home in Durham, surrounded by family and friends (those she loved and who loved her). She was born December 29th 1953 in Johnstown Pennsylvania to William Fay Walker and Louise Walker.

As a young girl, Mary was known as “Sis”, and was the surrogate mother to her eight step-brothers and step-sisters. Since her high school years, she had worked to supplement her families’ incomes. She was working in a clothing factory when she started courses at Fayetteville Technical Community College. She graduated with an A.A.S. degree in Civil Engineering in 1979. While working on weekends at the NC Area Office of the Corps of Engineers, Savannah District. Area Engineer John Castanes made her an offer: “Pass the Civil Service Exam and I’ll give you a job here.” Mary did indeed pass, with flying colors, and started work full time as a Quality Assurance Inspector.

With as sharp a legal mind as an engineering mind, Mary built a long career of managing contracts for engineering, clinical trials of pharmaceuticals, and logistics. Using her experience with the Corps of Engineers, in many cases she established contracting policies for larger organizations that had just begun to need them for a new business line. She did so at the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) in the Research Triangle Park, Burrroughs Wellcome Company in Greenville North Carolina, Jack Bond & Associates, Inc., and Labcorp Corporation of America, also in RTP.

She spent more of her professional life leading managers of contracts. She spent six years in overseas work in war zones supporting US and allied military forces in Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq, and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. Leading managers, educating everyone in the principles of sound contracts, from new hires to corporate managers. and developing new talent.

She had a love for natural foods, canning and preserving. Her Spring fruit strawberry and blueberry jams are famous in her circle.

Mary is survived by her husband, James Brierley Wyman, her sister Marion Walker, her mother Louise Finefrock, predeceased by her stepsister TeddyAnn Galley, and survived by her stepbrothers and stepsisters Victor Galley, Lorna Henley, Theodore Roosevelt Galley, Paul Galley, Sherrie Galley, Charlotte Gross, and Shannon Galley, half-sister Mary Lou Williams née Finefrock and Thomas Finefrock.

In lieu of flowers, donations in Mary’s name to the American Cancer Society.