VADM SANDRA STOSZ, USCG (RET.) PIONEER Changing the Course of History in Gender Equality and in the Military BY SUSAN WEGMUELLER & DALE LUMME V ICE ADMIRAL SANDRA STOSZ, USCG (Ret.), a Maryland native, was the 40th and first female Superintendent of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and the first female graduate of the Coast Guard Academy to achieve flag rank. VADM Stosz, Sandy, a pioneer and inspiration to many young professionals, shares her story, taking us back to what shaped her in her earlier years and sharing her vision for the next generation of young professionals. Sandy was fortunate to be raised in a time and place where, as a young girl, she was encouraged to pursue her inter-ests and was positively influenced by her family. “When I was young, I wanted to be a scientist because my father was one.” Her father was a chemical engineer research scientist for the U.S. Navy at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, White Oak in Silver Spring, Maryland. While there he developed rocket motors and propellant, often travel-ling to the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock facility to trial his rocket motors in a test tank. “How cool was that?” Passionate about all things outdoors and curious about the science of how things worked, just like her dad, Sandy set her sights early on to become a scientist, anything that ended in an ‘-ologist.’ Ornithologist, biologist, zoologist… Growing up in the 1960s as a tomboy with three brothers, she was never told she had to think a certain way just because she was a girl, but notes that, “The circumstances that one endures as a child drive the choices you have to make, and are really important in shaping who you become.” For Sandy, that moment and opportunity came in 1976 when she was a 16 year-old high school 28 INSPIRATIONAL WOMEN IN STEM & BEYOND: TRAILBLAZERS, PIONEERS & ROLE MODELS