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News > OP updates > Obituaries > Martin Fisher RIP

Martin Fisher RIP

22 Jan 2025
Obituaries
Martin
Martin

Martin Fisher
OP 1964
December 1946 - October 2024

With our thanks to Martin's brother, Rodney Fisher OP

Martin was born in Southsea. After early education in Trincomalee and Scotland, he returned to Southsea in 1955 on his father’s retirement from the Navy and entered the Junior School .

He was an enthusiastic participant in house sports, undefeated over four years as a lightweight boxer, and played cricket for the School First XI in his final year. Soccer was his abiding sports love which he played on Sundays and, as the occasion permitted, watched at Fratton Park on Saturdays. He rose to head the CCF Naval section.

He left school to take up his Naval Scholarship at Dartmouth (won at age 13), deferring for two years going up to Cambridge (Caius) to read electrical engineering. In 1966 in his first term at Caius, he met Julia, a nurse trainee at Addenbrookes Hospital. They married two years later. 

He became a key player on the Caius soccer team, a perennial minnow in the University soccer universe, which reached the final of the KO Cupper, after taking several notable scalps en route.

Graduating from Cambridge in 1969, Martin returned to active service with the Royal Navy. After a world cruise on Cleopatra in 1971, he came ashore for six years. Initially at Manadon, Royal Naval College in Plymouth as engineer lecturer, then studying for a MSc in Guided Weapons at Shrivenham College. In his spare time, wrote skits for the occasional Amateur Dramatic show.

In 1978, and by this time a family man with a son and daughter, Martin was posted to Washington DC to work with the US Navy on a UK specified version of Harpoon (an anti- ship missile), internationally a competitor of the French Exocet. (Harpoon would be at the centre of his working life for the next 20 years). 

Martin resigned from the Royal Navy in 1981, bringing to an end three generations of Naval Fishers spanning 80+ years. Martin and Julia made the USA their family home, and in due course took citizenship.

In 1990, Martin moved from Washington DC to St Louis, Missouri. For the next 14 years he travelled the world as Director of the Missile Division of McDonnell Douglas (latterly, Boeing, following a takeover).

Martin resigned from Boeing in 2004 to start his own consulting company, tapping into his wide network of naval and other government contracts. This change provided the opportunity for Martin and Julia to move back East to Richmond, Virginia, close to their married son and his three young grandchildren.

Martin died following a car accident in Jacksonville, Florida. He is survived by his wife, Julia, their two children and six grandchildren.

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