Marcia A Byrnes

Marcia Byrnes of Madison, Alabama died on May 13, 2023. She was born on June 26, 1956 in Detroit, MI. She is preceded in death by her parents, Walter and Wanda Kania, her brother Walter Kania Jr., and her son in law Kenton Schroeder.  She was a beloved wife, mother, grandmother, aunt, friend, and coworker.  

Marcia went to Fordson High School in Detroit, MI.  She attended Western Michigan University and was a girls’ All American in basketball.  She married her husband, Daniel, on April 25, 1980 and they just celebrated their 43^rd anniversary.   She was one of the kindest people you have ever met.  She loved to read, cross stitch, and Longaberger baskets.  She loved Kentucky basketball and Alabama football.  She loved holidays, especially Christmas and keeping in touch with her friends and family.  Above all Marcia loved her family fiercely, especially her grandchildren.  

After college she was an elementary school teacher for 1 year and then began working for the Department of Defense through the US Army Logistics Support Activity in 1978 and had a long career serving in many positions. Marcia led many important projects for the Army, her number one focus was always on people, both her teammates and her customers.

Marcia retired in May of 2020, after 41 years of service as a Department of the Army civilian.  Having spent the early part of her career at the Materiel Readiness Support Activity in Lexington-Bluegrass Army Depot, Marcia moved to Huntsville in the mid-1990s to work for the Army’s Logistics Support Activity (LOGSA). 

While at LOGSA, Marcia was known for being a dedicated mentor in growing Army logistics leaders.  She was a staunch supporter and mentor for interns and fellows.  She supported and encouraged many developmental assignments, challenging civilians to gain more expertise and take on more responsibilities in support of soldiers. Marcia traveled the globe providing training to soldiers and customers on logistics processes and helping them improve their readiness.  She planned and led several Worldwide Logistics Training Workshops in the Huntsville area that often hosted more than 1,200 soldiers and civilians and were known as world-class, can’t miss training events.  For those that couldn’t attend in-residence training, Marcia led the development of computer-based, virtual training and worked to have logistics tools trained in Army schoolhouses. 

Marcia’s team was often assigned the most critical software development projects during the Global War on Terror, where she led efforts to rapidly deliver Web-based software tools that soldiers needed to manage equipment at forward locations and then plan for maintenance upon return home.  In 2010, one of the senior Army logisticians in Iraq commented that they never would be able to execute the massive equipment retrograde mission on schedule without one of the tools Marcia’s team rapidly developed. She would later lead efforts to field a decision support tool that optimized equipping plans for the Army. 

More recently, Marcia led efforts to modernize Army logistics systems, consolidating them and moving them to Cloud services, which improved their performance and made data sharing among enterprise systems more achievable. 

Marcia is survived by her husband, Daniel Byrnes, daughter, Kristina Schroeder, son James Byrnes, granddaughters, Jamie and Janna Byrnes, grandson, James Byrnes Jr, niece Andrea Rogers Pauloski, and nephew, Tanner Clark, and many other brother and sisters-in-law, nieces, and nephews.  

The visitation will be held at Legacy Funeral Home in Madison, Alabama on May 20, 2023 from 10 to 11 am. Services will follow at 11 am, following to the graveside afterwards at Huntsville Memory Gardens.