REP. jake auchincloss
U.S. Representative for Massachusetts’s 4th Congressional District | Newton, Massachusetts
Upon graduating from Harvard University in 2010, Jake Auchincloss joined the United States Marine Corps, completed Officer Candidates School in Quantico, Virginia and was commissioned as an officer. He gained combat experience leading infantry in Afghanistan's Helmand Province in 2012, where he directed combat patrols through villages fiercely contested by the Taliban. Later, in 2014, he commanded a reconnaissance unit in Panama, working alongside Colombian special operations to equip the Panamanian Public Forces with vital drug-interdiction tactics.
Auchincloss's rigorous training included infantry training in Quantico, the Marine Corps’ renowned reconnaissance training in California (featured in Nathaniel Fick's book, “One Bullet Away”), and the grueling Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape school. After concluding active duty in 2015, he remained in the Individual Ready Reserve and in 2020 was promoted to major.
Post active-duty service, Auchincloss earned an MBA from MIT Sloan and pursued a career in product development and innovation, first at a cybersecurity startup, then at Liberty Mutual’s innovation lab. He entered public service in 2015 by winning a seat on the Newton City Council. Reelected in 2017 and 2019, he chaired the Transportation & Public Safety Committee and championed initiatives for full-day kindergarten, expanded pre-K, progressive housing, and sustainable transportation.
In 2020, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, succeeding Joe Kennedy III. Now serving his third term, he holds seats on the Energy & Commerce Committee and the Select Committee on Strategic Competition with China.
Auchincloss has prioritized veterans’ issues, cosponsoring the bills Serving our LGBTQ Veterans Act (to aid LGBTQ+ veterans in accessing VA resources), Reproductive Health Information for Veterans Act, and Sgt. Ketchum Rural Veterans Mental Health Act of 2021. He also supported the U.S.-Israel PTSD Collaborative Research Act to fund PTSD research partnerships.
Through both military service and public office, Auchincloss has remained committed to leadership, innovation, and advocacy for those who have served.
franklin story musgrave
Decorated NASA Astronaut | Boston, Massachusetts
Born in Boston, Franklin Story Musgrave’s ancestral roots go back to Mayflower passengers and the founding of the United States. Those initial arrivals could never have imagined the figurative and literal heights that descendant Musgrave would reach throughout his career.
The accolades alone that Musgrave has received over the years could fill a book. Among the most notable, he became the second astronaut to take six spaceflights in 1996, and the only astronaut to fly missions on all five of the Space Shuttles before retiring in 1997. He flew two classified Department of Defense missions.
Musgrave’s incredible career began when he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps instead of finishing high school in 1953.
“My horizons started to expand when I went off to Korea in the Marine Corps,” he said. “As the saying goes, you join the service to see the world. That’s when my horizons began to expand.”
During his time with the Marines, Musgrave served as an aviation electrician, instrument technician, and aircraft crew chief with duty assignments in Korea, Japan, and Hawaii, and completed his GED. Following his discharge, Musgrave received his first degree, a Bachelor of Science in mathematics and statistics from Syracuse University in 1958. Later, he became a recipient of Syracuse University’s highest alumni honor, the George Arents Award, bestowed to those who have made outstanding contributions to their chosen field.
Musgrave was selected to work for NASA as part of the first cohort of astronaut-scientists in 1967. He was instrumental in designing and developing the Skylab Program and all of the Space Shuttle extravehicular activity equipment.
In his NASA roles as a spacecraft communicator, mission specialist, and payload commander, he spent 53 days, 9 hours, and 55 minutes in space.
As he demonstrated throughout his remarkable career, Musgrave firmly believes that the key to exploration is “getting out of the comfortable path.”
Today, Dr. Musgrave is a consultant and speaker, is involved in multiple enterprises, practices landscape architecture, consults with Disney’s Imagineering and Applied Minds in California, and teaches at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Musgrave is a 1995 inductee of the International Space Hall of Fame.