2006
Wally Urman, 91, a retired mechanical engineer with the Naval Research Laboratory, died July 7 of a heart attack at Largo Medical Center in
Largo, Fla., after undergoing surgery for a ruptured aneurysm. Formerly a Temple Hills resident, he had lived in Clearwater Beach, Fla.,
since 1975.
Born to Polish Lithuanian parents in Punia, Lithuania, Mr. Urman immigrated to the United States in 1930, arriving at Ellis Island and living
in New York City throughout the 1930s. He worked in restaurants in New York during the Depression, going to school at night, and in 1940
accepted a job as a federal government clerk in Washington. He served with the Army in Alaska during World War II and got his diploma
from McKinley High School after the war.
Shortly afterward, he took a job as a draftsman with the Naval Research Laboratory and was subsequently promoted to technical engineer.
He also took engineering courses at the University of Maryland, George Washington University, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Graduate
School and at the NRL itself.
In the late 1940s, he became a mechanical engineer for the NRL's space research program, where he worked on captured German V-2
rockets. His unit redesigned the V-2 nose cones and fitted them with new instrumentation for U.S. space explorations. He designed several
new satellite structures and worked on the development of the nation's first satellite, Vanguard. He worked on an estimated 63 satellite
projects before his retirement in 1974.
Mr. Urman moved to Florida after his retirement. He was involved with several Polish American organizations in both the District and Florida
as well as with Missile, Space and Range Pioneers Inc., located at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida.
After the collapse of communist Europe, Mr. Urman visited Lithuania and in the early 1990s took on the formidable task of regaining title to
his original family farmstead. Reconstructing records that had allegedly been misplaced, deciphering confusing and contradictory
government regulations and dealing with an obstinate post-communist bureaucracy turned into an ordeal, but after 11 years Mr. Urman
managed to repatriate the family property.
His wife, Anne Filipczyk Urman, died in 1991.
Survivors include four children, Teresa Buckoski of Glenn Dale, Tom Urman of Vienna, John Urman of Arlington and Judy Doyle of Brandon,
Fla.; and five grandchildren.