1941
Virginia
2020
Virginia Corwin Millo
October 10, 1941 — November 12, 2020
First Woman Aerospace Engineer
Virginia Corwin Millo, 79, of Walpole, MA and Kailua, HI, died November 12 at her Walpole home surrounded by family.
Ginni was born on October 10, 1941 in Philadelphia, the daughter of John Thomas Corwin and Lee Merrifield Corwin. She graduated from Hingham High School, then Sweet Briar College in 1963 with Distinction in Physics. She earned an MBA in Business Management at the Northeastern University D’Amore-McKim School of Business in 1981, winning admission to the Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society. In 2001, she earned a Graduate Certificate in Information Technology at Harvard.
Ginni began working for Northrop between her Junior and Senior college years, and after her graduation, was hired by them as their first woman aerospace engineer. Over the 32 years she worked at Northrop, Ginni was promoted through various supervisory levels, her last being Program Manager, specializing in products used on the Space Shuttle and other space vehicles.
Ginni’s mother’s family, Merrifield, were early 1600 settlers in Virginia and Ginni’s name is a nod to that family history. The Merrifields later moved to the West Coast in covered wagons during the Gold Rush.
Because Ginni’s father was a career naval officer, the family moved often and Ginni lived in New Jersey; Berkeley, CA; Honolulu; Arlington, VA; Newport, RI, and Hingham, MA.
In Hingham, the family joined the Hingham Yacht Club and got a sailboat and there Ginni found her life-long love of sailing.
Ginni married Ken Millo in 1973. Their son, Gregory Corwin Millo was born in 1982. In Ginni’s words, Gregory was “the delight of her life.” Ken got Ginni hooked on flying and she earned her private pilot’s license in 1969.
Ginni retired from Northrop Grumman in 1995 and founded Computer Confidence, giving small class and personal lessons to seniors in computer use.
Ginni was a very active member of the United Church in Walpole, designing their ground-breaking website, serving as Webmaster, helping to upgrade the church’s audio-visual system and other projects too numerous to name.
Traveling was Ginni’s passion and she got to see more of the planet than most people. After buying a condo in Hawaii, she spent her winters there, often appending additional travel to those trips. She made two trips around the world, one, when she was 26, lasted for three months, focused mostly on the orient and ended with a week of skiing in Austria. She also visited Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, Galapagos, Ecuador, Venezuela, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Nassau, Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Guadeloupe, Azores, Canary Islands, Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Alaska, Nova Scotia, Spain, France, Austria, London, Amsterdam, Finland, Leningrad, Moscow, Italy, Budapest, Greece, Istanbul, Egypt, Jordan, Iran, India, Thailand, Malaysia, China, Hong Kong, Philippines and Japan.
She is survived by her son, Gregory Corwin Millo of Walpole; her sister, Merry Lee Corwin of Kailua, HI; her former husband, Kenneth W. Millo of Cheshire, CT; nephew Toby, niece-in-law Cammy, grandnephews Koa and ‘Aka and grandniece Maluhia San Luis, all of Kailua. Her ashes will be scattered off Makapu’u Point in Hawaii.
Relatives and friends are kindly invited to attend Ginni’s visitation on Friday, November 20, 2020 from 4 to 8 PM in the James H. Delaney & Son Funeral Home, 48 Common Street, Walpole. As a result of the ongoing and ever developing health crisis in the world and with genuine concern for the people whom they love, Ginni's family has decided that her service will take place privately in the United Church in Walpole, with her family in attendance, on Saturday, November 21, 2020 at 10:00 AM. Friends and members of Ginni’s community may watch the service at https://www.unitedwalpole.org/livestream.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in Ginni’s honor to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network at
http://support.pancan.org/goto/ForGinni.
To order memorial trees or send flowers to the family in memory of Virginia Corwin Millo, please visit our flower store.
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