What’s it take to be a superhero? In comic strips, you pretty much need a cape, some superpowers and a cool name. But across Johns Hopkins, superheroes look a little different. They might wear an ID badge, uniform and a kind smile, and their powers might include cleaning the floor until it sparkles or painlessly inserting a patient’s IV.

This year, nearly 1,900 Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins Health System Corporation superhero employees celebrated a milestone work anniversary of five, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 or — for the first time ever — 60 years.

At the Employee Appreciation Service Awards Ceremony on Sept. 13, Redonda Miller, president of The Johns Hopkins Hospital, spoke about how the word “super” defines so many extraordinary people and things. “As I look around the room today,” she said, “I’m reminded of the stories of your supercare, your supercompassion and your superexpertise.”

So what’s the secret to staying at Johns Hopkins for so long?

Ruth Leppard, physician liaison, is the first Johns Hopkins employee to celebrate working here for 60 years, and she’s still not quite ready to hang up her badge.

“What I like about the hospital is that we work as a family, we work together,” she says. “The doctors here are like family — they know our names and they respect us.”

After graduating from Dunbar High School in 1958, Leppard came to Johns Hopkins for an interview on a Friday, started work the following Monday, and has been here ever since. She says that learning the basics of employment as a teenager was essential to her growth at Johns Hopkins.

Jackie Roles, a unit associate in emergency nursing, and endoscopy tech Tarsha Trent agree that working at Johns Hopkins is like working with family — literally. They are among several generations of family members to work here, including aunts, sisters, cousins, nephews and even Roles’ mother.

“It seems like our whole family has worked here at one point or another,” laughs Trent. She and her mother both proudly crossed the stage at this year’s awards ceremony; Trent is celebrating 20 years and her mother 30.

During his remarks, Kevin Sowers, president of the Johns Hopkins Health System and executive vice president of Johns Hopkins Medicine, shared that he had always wanted to be a superhero as a child. He quoted the Fantastic Four comic, saying, “The door is more than it appears. It separates who you are from who you can be.” He told the 2018 honorees that by choosing to walk through the doors of one of the best health care organizations in the world, they connect themselves to a higher purpose: taking care of patients and loved ones.

Claire Petchler decided to become a nurse when she was in college. She jokes that nursing runs in her family; her mother and both grandmothers were nurses. Almost two years into her Johns Hopkins career as a nurse clinician in the medical intensive care unit (MICU), she was named the 2018 recipient of Johns Hopkins’ coveted Edward A. Halle Prize for Excellence in Patient Service.

Petchler was recognized at the ceremony for her compassionate care, particularly for a patient on life support. She comforted the person’s family and created prints of the patient’s hands as a keepsake. After the patient passed away, a family friend thanked Petchler in a letter, writing, “All you could see in front of you was a very sick woman. Yet you treated the weak, ailing, broken body in that hospital bed as if you did know her and the amazing person she had been. Thank you for treating her with love and care, as if you saw with your heart what you couldn’t see with your eyes.”

Petchler admits that being a MICU nurse can be physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually exhausting, but she loves being able to make a difference. “It has very valuable and precious life experiences I don’t think you’d get anywhere else,” she says.

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View and download photos from this year’s ceremony on Sept. 13 and dinner on Sept. 17, courtesy of Magnality Event Photography. Use access code yos918.