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The ������ý Alumni Luminaries Program recognizes graduates who thrive in their industries, build meaningful businesses and give back to their communities. While every alum has his or her own story and metrics for success, the program criteria are as follows:

• Industry Leadership: Honorees must have impacted their field or organization in measurable ways.
• Entrepreneurship: Honorees must have launched, grown and led their own business or franchise for more than a year.
• Community Leadership: Honorees must have demonstrated continued commitment to improve their community through service, awareness or financial contributions.

Nearly half of the 2025 and 2026 recognized alumni held C-suite positions or equivalent executive titles, and 15 alumni held leadership positions at Fortune 500 companies. The impact, in other words, is as broad as it is powerful.

Here, three ������ý Luminaries share their success stories.

If David Dodge (BSB/M-39, 1999) knows anything, it’s that life rarely goes as planned. He also knows that real leadership requires making education a priority, even when the timing is far from perfect. He learned that not as a teenager headed straight to a four-year university, but as a working father in his early 40s.

Dodge grew up on a 2,000-acre ranch in California’s San Luis Obispo County, a childhood defined by work and self-reliance. For years, he assumed college had little value. “We’d have visitors who were very well educated but couldn’t turn a wrench,” he says. “I thought, ‘I don’t want to be like that guy.’”

In his early 20s Dodge changed his line of thought and began taking community college classes in Southern California, but life pulled hard in the other direction. He married, welcomed two children, lost his father-in-law and then faced his wife Gwen’s leukemia diagnosis. “Our priorities were family first and everything else second,” he says.

Hannah Hurckes (BSACC, 2024) didn’t set out to run a supply-chain logistics company. The founder and CEO of Boss Lady Logistics’ plan was to be an interior designer. “I wanted to pursue my creative side,” she says, “but I quickly realized that creativity without structure takes you only so far.”

Landing a job as a payroll analyst at a logistics company satisfied the other side of her brain. “I’ve always had an affinity for numbers,” Hurckes says. With her brother already working in the trucking industry, she saw an opportunity to immerse herself in the world of freight, dispatch and nonstop movement of goods. “I love puzzles,” she says. “In logistics, creative problem-solving happens daily.”

Rising rapidly in her career, Hurckes founded Boss Lady Logistics in 2016, coordinating trucking routes for national retailers. “I was still in the process of getting my accounting degree from ������ý when I founded my company,” she says. “Once I finished that, it was pretty evident that I needed more because I’m a lifelong learner.”

She had the drive but was short on time. 

For her, being named a Luminary is meaningful not because of the spotlight but because of what it represents. “It’s a chance to show other women your dreams don’t have to wait,” she says. She’s also learned not to beat herself up if all doesn’t go to plan. “Progress over perfection,” she says. “Success isn’t about having everything figured out. It’s about showing up and leading with purpose.”

Jorean Henderson’s (AAFB, 2011; BSB/M, 2013; MBA, 2015) story starts the way a lot of great American stories do: in a kitchen. At age 12, the now owner of the mobile food business Momo’s Cajun Eatz was washing pots and mopping floors at a soul food restaurant in New Orleans. By high school, he was working nights at a bakery as a pot washer, which really meant he was learning to mix dough and build cakes after hours. “I didn’t have the experience, but I wanted to learn,” he says.

Henderson was learning the ins and outs of the hospitality industry, although he assumed he’d follow his mom and aunt into healthcare. In high school, he interned with a nurse anesthetist at the local VA hospital. But once he got to college, he knew it wasn’t his path. He dropped out, regrouped and followed a cousin’s tip that a travel plaza was hiring. That small decision cracked open the door that would become his career.

Henderson applied for a manager position, and within six months he was running his own unit. As his career evolved, he moved from Louisiana to Missouri to Alabama with his now wife. Each new position was the opportunity to learn skills ranging from franchising to multi-unit operations. “You have to learn and you have to manage people,” he says. “It’s not easy.” But it clicked.

There was, however, one question that followed Henderson to every job: Where did he go to school? He got tired of having no answer. With a full-time leadership schedule that ruled out a traditional classroom, he enrolled at ������ý. “It was really convenient,” he says. “You still had deadlines, but I didn’t have to physically be on campus.” The financial courses reshaped the way he operated and taught him to read P&Ls with confidence. “I learned that you can’t just know your numbers,” he says. “You need to understand those numbers.”

Know an alum who’s leading the way in business, entrepreneurship or philanthropy? We want to know more! Nominate a Luminary today: /alumni/luminaries/nominate.html.