John C. Rodgers

John Rodgers was a natural-born teacher who could expound on the mysteries of the universe in one moment and tell you how to run a pick and roll in the next.

He imparted his passion for science to many generations of children — pulling out his microscope for his kids’ friends to show them the world of microbial life that existed in a single drop of water. He taught his children how to hold a football by the laces and helped them practice body surfing in the ocean.

And then, in his later years, he showed his loved ones how to face the end of life with selflessness and courage. Despite a cancer that attacked his brain and abilities, he fought to remain the guardian of his family, to take care of them, and remind them that they were loved. At the end of it all, he died peacefully on July 21 at age 64.

John Charles Rodgers was born in Washington, D.C., on August 20, 1956. His father, Joseph, was an air conditioning salesman, and his mother, Alma, was a nurse and later a homemaker.

His mom liked to tell this story about him as a young child: One day, he came to her in tears because he was trying to rescue a fallen baby blue jay but wasn’t getting far because the mother bird wouldn’t stop pecking his head.

“The mother bird doesn’t know you’re trying to help,” his mom explained.

So he dried his eyes, put on a toy space helmet to protect his head, and went back to his mission — this time successfully returning the chick to its nest.

This ingenuity also surfaced later on in elementary school, when he figured out how to infuse toothpicks with cinnamon flavor and launched a small business venture selling them to his classmates. As he grew older, his interests shifted to working on cars and in the woodshop, developing what would be a lifelong love for carpentry.

He started experimenting with drugs as a teenager and continued even after he joined the Navy, where his early performance reviews critiqued his irreverence and disregard for authority.

That all changed suddenly for him one day on the U.S.S. Concord, as he climbed to the top of a boat mast and took in his surroundings. Struck in that moment by his mortality — he was just a slip away from the churning sea and the boat’s deck — he chucked his packet of drugs into the water and dedicated his life to God.

He was never the same after that. Even his next military evaluation noted that he’d left his “boisterous” behavior behind and “found a new direction in life.”

He started attending church and, after leaving active-duty military service, found his way to the congregation where he’d meet his future wife, a vibrant, redheaded teacher named Kathy.

As she’d tell it, she first noticed him one Sunday after church let out. A group of young guys had grabbed a child’s doll and started tossing it to one another, eventually letting it fall to the ground. John walked over, picked it up, dusted it off and held it in his arms, and Kathy said she could tell right away that he was different.

They married in December 1982, just before Christmas.

On the drive to their honeymoon in Pennsylvania, Kathy marveled at the icicles hanging from the cliffs they were passing. He pulled over and climbed the rocks to pick her the most beautiful of them, even though it quickly melted in her hands.

The first years of their marriage were challenging, as John juggled odd jobs with coursework for his electrical engineering degree. Kathy stayed up late into the night with him, transcribing his papers on their typewriter.

And about a year after the birth of their first child they came home from church to find that the farmhouse they rented had burned to the ground. They lost almost everything they owned in a single morning.

The couple built their life back from next to nothing, buying an old brick colonial in Bladensburg where they’d raise their young family. John worked his way up from a research assistant at the University of Maryland to a leader in a physics lab that studied microwaves and plasma.

He worked long hours, but he was present in the lives of his children. He played them bluegrass on his harmonica at bedtime and cooked up giant stacks of pancakes for them on Sunday mornings.

Many weekends, he’d pile them into his eternally broken-down car and set off on one of his famous adventures. Whenever his kids asked where they were headed, all he’d tell them was that they were going “down the road apiece.”

Often, to finish these days off, he’d drive them as far as it took to get away from city lights and pull over in a dark field or at the top of a mountain. They’d lie on the hood of his car and stare up at the Milky Way to find the wonders he promised were there. Whoever spotted a shooting star or satellite first would get an Oreo.

In 2003, after working for several years on his thesis, he earned a doctorate in electrophysics from the University of Fukui in Japan. He moved to a job at the Naval Research Lab in 2014, where he was an expert and leader in the design and development of high-power microwave and millimeter-wave amplifiers for Navy systems. He achieved record performance in his amplifier work and invented new computational methods for quickly simulating electromagnetic profiles and investigating chaotic signals in complex circuit geometries.

Despite a long list of personal achievements, he seemed most excited by mentoring younger scientists and tutoring cadets in the U.S. Naval Academy.

And in his later years, his identity was wrapped up in being “Pop-pop” to his three grandchildren. He taught his grandson Malachi how to say, “Go Navy, beat Army,” and mean it. He gave his granddaughter Hadassah all the “muggles” (cuddles) in the world. He played supervillain to his grandson Calvin’s superhero.

He was also endlessly proud of his physical fitness, often reminding his loved ones that he was the fastest runner in his age group in a 5K from 2014. (To be fair, he did average about a seven-minute-mile even though he hadn’t trained at all beforehand.)

Later on, when he was recovering in the hospital from brain surgery, he liked to inform all of the nurses and doctors that he was the “picture of health” — never mind that he had cancer.

He faced his diagnosis head-on, and he and Kathy stood beside each other as both of them underwent treatment for cancer just months apart. When she got too weak to descend the steps outside their front door, he built her a special set of wooden stairs with a handrail she could lean on if she needed support. He painted it bright blue to cheer her up.

Toward the end, when he was no longer able to work and lost most of his vision, he finally and uncharacteristically took some time to rest. He enjoyed sitting out on the beautiful deck he’d built by hand, soaking up the sunshine. And when the evening came, he’d listen to the birds and frogs chirping in the woods behind his home and light up a cigar.

He told his children on one of these nights that he knew his life wasn’t perfect, but it was covered by God’s grace.

John was preceded in death by his wife, Kathleen Rodgers, and his mother, Alma Rodgers. He is survived by his father, Joseph Rodgers; his daughter, Bethany; his sons, Benjamin (Kennesha) and Charles; his grandchildren, Malachi, Hadassah, and Calvin; his brothers, Joe (Annie) and Jim; and his sisters, Mary (Tim), Margy, and Patty (Pete).