She has commanded warships, defeated pirates, and just made Navy history as the highest-ranking woman ever. Clear the decks for Admiral Michelle Howard!

Admiral Howard, photographed at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia

When Michelle Howard, a vice admiral, was summoned last year by the head of the Navy, she thought he'd be discussing a new assignment. Instead, he wanted to nominate her to the rank of four-star admiral—a position no woman in U.S. naval history had ever achieved.

Stunned, Howard, now 54, went home to think about whether she had the right skills "to move the Navy forward," she recalls. Her husband of 25 years, Wayne Cowles, a retired Marine and fellow Desert Storm veteran, encouraged her to accept. Her 81-year-old mother, who lives with them, said, "You need to do this." And so Howard got ready to break a gender barrier. When she called to order her women's four-star shoulder boards, the receptionist told her, "Uh, there aren't any," she recalls. "I go, 'Yeah, I thought that might be the case.' "

Howard was only 12 when she saw a documentary about the nation's military academies and became smitten. "My older brother—he was quite gleeful—told me they were closed to women," she says. "I had been so excited about what I was seeing, I hadn't even noticed it was all guys. That's such a mind-blowing experience at 12: Women can't do things because of the law?" Her mother counseled her not to give up, saying they could challenge the rule. But they didn't have to: The law changed when Howard was 16, and she was one of the first women admitted to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

"Admiral Howard is a trailblazer whose leadership and service are a credit to the Navy and our nation. Her command is a reflection of her merit and a historic signal of our progress in recognizing our women in uniform."

—Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the first and only woman to have served as speaker of the House

Since then, Howard has been capsizing the status quo on a regular basis. She was the first African American woman to command a ship, and the first in any branch of the military to reach three stars. In 2009 she made news when she oversaw the crew that rescued an American cargo ship captain kidnapped by Somali pirates. (The high-seas drama was made into the Tom Hanks movie Captain Phillips; a pair of tickets to the premiere is framed on her wall at the Pentagon.) "She has the kind of personality that puts people at ease very quickly," says Michèle Flournoy, former undersecretary of defense for policy, the first woman to hold that role. "She also has plenty of backbone."

Howard stresses that she couldn't have come this far without Cowles' support. After he retired from the military, he would quit his civilian jobs when she got transferred, she says. "He got a little grief from his former Marine Corps buddies who called him 'camp follower,' and he'd say, 'Hey, you guys are just jealous.' " Now, as the Navy's second-in-command, Howard will be facing tough issues like sexual assault and gender imbalance (the Navy is only 18 percent women). But she's always had a blind spot for obstacles. "If you really want to do something, go for it," she says. Later in life, "even if it doesn't come to fruition, when you're in that rocking chair on the porch, you'll be like, 'I don't have any regrets. I went after it.' "

HER WORDS TO LIVE BY: "Let go of what you can't control. When you have a goal, there are always outside factors you have no power over. Try to put them aside. You'll make much more headway in getting your mission done."