As a graduate student at Johns Hopkins, Claudia Kretchmer ’04 (MA) spent six years studying how galaxies morph from infancy into maturity, hoping to one day join the space program at NASA, and maybe even become an astronaut. Her ambitious plan, however, took an unexpected turn just months before she was supposed to receive her PhD.

In 2006, Steven Kretchmer—Claudia’s stepfather, an award-winning jewelry designer— was killed in a motorcycle crash. Six months later her mother lost her battle with breast cancer. The couple left behind an impressive legacy: Steven Kretchmer Designs, their prestigious and thriving jewelry business.

Kretchmer had no formal training in either business or jewelry design, though she had helped her parents with trade shows and other aspects of the business since age 14. After the deaths of her mother and stepfather, however, there was no question she would step up. “I’m the fourth generation,” she says. “Legacy is important to me.”

Still, she says, “I was petrified. A lot of people were watching to see what would happen. They knew me, but as the astrophysicist.”

Kretchmer says she drew on some lessons she learned at Hopkins to help her succeed in her unexpected new career; namely, how to overcome her fear of public speaking and fear of failure. And, she says, “I learned to go for things that you don’t think you can do or achieve.” The transition from science to jewelry design was not easy.  “As a scientist, I was used to being very organized,” says Kretchmer. “I would wake up and have a plan for things I wanted to accomplish that day. Then you go into business, which is fluid and dynamic. Things come up all the time; new things, different things. Even though you have a plan, you have to be okay with that plan changing.”

Kretchmer credits Steven with having taught her the aesthetics of jewelry design. From there, she called on her network of contacts in the jewelry industry for advice and support. “I just got up every day and got to work and did the best I could. Trying to think through things and ask a lot of advice,” she says.

Ten years later, Kretchmer is making waves of her own. Last February she won the American Gem Trade Association’s Spectrum Award, one of the highest accolades in the industry, for her design of the piece Rockstar2. In August she was awarded the Women’s Jewelry Association’s Excellence in Design Award for her body of work.

“It’s really special to be part of people’s lives in such a subtle way and make them happy,” says Kretchmer. “I love that part of it.”

At a recent art and antique show in Baltimore, where she was showing some of her designs, Kretchmer said her love of astrophysics and astronomy inspires her work.

“I still have a passion for science. This year I launched a new line that I’m building on, called Stellina Blue, which means ‘little blue star.’” The star in each piece is represented by a small sapphire.

In his seven years as the Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus ’70 (MS) has not shrunk from a fight for change. With opposition from both inside and outside his military branch, Mabus has pushed for:

• Expanded opportunities for women, including allowing them to serve in submarines, increasing maternity leave from 6 weeks to 18 weeks, and letting them assume combat roles in the Navy and Marine Corps;
• Reduced reliance on fossil fuels, with aggressive goals for the Navy to use alternative sources such as wind and solar power, biofuels, and nuclear power for its ships and bases;
• Attracting a wider group of candidates for naval service by reopening long-dormant ROTC operations at elite schools such as Harvard and Yale, as well as more diverse institutions such as Rutgers and Arizona State.

His efforts are perhaps all the more remarkable in that, by law and tradition in recent decades, service secretaries are less powerful than they were in an earlier era—subject to vetoes by the Secretary of Defense or the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Nonetheless, Mabus, 67, has been an active proponent of change, both real and symbolic, getting into dustups with others for such matters as naming naval vessels for labor leader Cesar Chavez, former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, and, most recently, slain gay rights activist Harvey Milk.

What’s been driving him to push for such changes? Mabus credits his enlightened parents, raising him in Mississippi at a time of seismic shifts in civil rights.

“You could see that segregation was wrong in every possible way,” he says. “It was just so evident.” Years later, as governor of the state, Mabus endeavored to move Mississippi from its perpetual bottom-of-the-barrel ranking in socioeconomic status.

“If you’re the poorest state in the nation, there is no risk in trying new things,” he says. “The risk is in continuing to do what you’re doing.”

He has taken his vision and administrative skills to a variety of positions, including stints as a CEO and as U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Though he later earned a JD from Harvard, Mabus credits Johns Hopkins, where he received a degree in political science, with giving him the lifelong career advantage of knowing how to think critically and how to write.

“When I was governor, I would get memos and letters that I couldn’t understand,” he says. “I’d scribble across them, ‘better memo’ or ‘better letter.’”

And while morality and fairness are a large dose of his motivation to seek change, so is simple logic. That push for a more diverse workforce in the Navy? It’s because studies show that gathering the views of many produces better results than relying on a small group of experts. Turning to alternative energy sources wasn’t just to satisfy environmental concerns, it also saved American lives from being lost while trying to protect or access Middle Eastern oil reserves, he notes.

Of course, the fundamental task of the Navy is to provide defensive security across the globe, and when Mabus took the helm it had fewer ships sailing under the American flag than needed for that mission, he says. He’s stepped up the number of ships under contract each year since assuming office to reach that number—308—by 2020.

With his vast experience as a leader, it’s not surprising that he’s a frequent commencement speaker. What does he tell graduating seniors?

“At some point in your life, do something bigger than yourself,” he says. “Do something that will make people’s lives better. There’s nothing wrong with making money, but at the end of your life, you’re probably not going to look back on how much stuff you’ve accumulated.”

Mabus will be retiring with the end of the Obama administration and won’t be in office when the Navy has the full comportment of ships he’s seeking. There’s a related story involving his father he tells concluding his commencement speeches.

His dad had owned a hardware store, then went into the lumber business, dying at 85. “In the last year of his life, he didn’t cut a single tree,” Mabus says. “But he planted thousands, knowing that he would never see them, but that his children and his grandchildren would.”

His final words to the graduates: “Decide what trees you’re going to plant.”

When the request came, Mark G. Meadows ’11 politely declined. After all, he was in Doha, Qatar, pursuing his dream, playing jazz to an international audience. “I’m not really an actor, and I’m also working on a new album,” the pianist, singer, and composer wrote in his email reply to theater director Matthew Gardiner, who was asking him to audition for Jelly’s Last Jam, a musical about the life of legendary jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton.

While declining seemed sensible enough, Meadows didn’t understand what he was passing up. “I didn’t realize how big a role it was,” he says, “nor did I realize how big of a deal Signature Theatre was.” And though he had learned a Jelly Roll Morton song as a student at Johns Hopkins’ Peabody Conservatory, Meadows knew little about the life of the man whose story inspired the Broadway musical.

Fortunately, Meadows reconsidered. He returned home and read for the part. Though his only acting experience had come on the high school stage a decade earlier, Meadows discovered that his years of playing jazz had provided the tools to take on the challenge. During the audition, Meadows says Gardiner “seemed impressed with my ability to listen and react and respond, and I told him that’s all I do as a jazz musician. I’m listening. I’m trying to add whatever I can to make it work.”

Clearly, he did make it work. Meadows landed the lead role in the show, which premiered on August 2 at the prestigious Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, and ran through September 11. The novice actor treated each performance as a chance to perfect the part.

“The more I play Jelly Roll Morton,” Meadows said after just a few performances, “the more I learn about him. I might dust off the piano bench, because he used to dust off the piano bench before he sat on it. I might listen to him before the show, and during a solo break when I’m playing piano, I’ll play something more similar to that.” Though reticent at first, the 27-year-old embraced the chance to fully inhabit Jelly Roll’s persona.

The part proved a natural fit for Meadows, who earned a psychology degree from the Krieger School, as well as a jazz piano degree (2011) and a graduate performance degree in jazz piano (2013) from Peabody. A legendary figure in the history of jazz, Jelly Roll Morton was a key innovator during the genre’s earliest years. A gifted pianist from a young age, he forged his style in the libertine atmosphere of the New Orleans brothels where he played during his teens. Like Morton, Meadows studied classical piano as a child, though his development took cues, somewhat more conventionally, from the music he absorbed in church and at the gigs of his jazz-vocalist father.

After leaving Hopkins, Meadows became a fixture on the vibrant D.C. jazz scene, where he was named artist of the year in 2014 by the Washington City Paper. Even as he poured himself into preparing for the run of Jelly’s Last Jam, Meadows remained committed to finishing the album he mentioned back in Qatar. He released To the People last April, a recording that reflects on turbulent events, and was motivated, he says, by “not only police brutality, but just brutality in our world that we keep seeing happen over and over again.” He recorded versions of classic songs of social consciousness, such as Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” plus his own compositions, including “What Would You Do,” which he describes as a call to action for his listeners. It’s a song born of frustration, one that echoes feelings Gaye expressed nearly a half-century ago. “I’m still saying the same thing,” Meadows says, “and I’m mad about it now.”

Meadows also draws inspiration from contemporary artists, especially hip-hop star Kendrick Lamar, who has tackled similar themes. And though Meadows references various musical styles, it remains important to him that his work be called jazz, he says, “Because jazz is the music of freedom. Jazz is the music that forces you to listen and forces you to create and forces you to be free.”