Joy Bright Hancock Organization began as the only women’s organization at the U. S. Naval Academy, and is still unique in that aspect. Although our mission has adapted over time, we are the sole place for female midshipmen to come together to discuss and share issues. The JBH Organization is gender-neutral, and our leadership chooses discussion topics that address both genders. However, we frequently address issues that relate to balancing personal and career choices, which tend to draw a predominantly female audience.

Our mission is as follows:

     "To provide opportunities for members to discuss aspects of their career not examined in other professional development programs specific to women in the Navy. JBHO seeks to create a dialogue between previous generations of women and current female midshipmen in order to encourage networking and collaboration in order that USNA women past and present can pursue the widest possible range of professional and personal opportunities."

     The Joy Bright Hancock Organization is unique in that it pools available resources to discuss several aspects of the most important issue that midshipman face – their career as an officer. In addition to military bearing and professional knowledge, every junior officer needs to learn the skills necessary to have a successful career, yet there is no other organization on the Yard that specifically addresses that need. Further, we can provide a forum for issues that are specific to female military members.

Taken directly from Arlington National Cemetery's database on Captain Joy Bright Hancock, USN.

     Joy Bright was born in Wildwood, New Jersey, on 4 May 1898. During World War I, after attending business school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she enlisted in the Navy as a Yeoman (F), serving at Camden, New Jersey and at the Naval Air Station, Cape May. Following the war, she married Lieutenant Charles Gray Little, who was killed in the crash of the airship ZR-2 in 1921. A year later, she obtained employment with the Bureau of Aeronautics, where her duties including editing the Bureau's "News Letter", which later evolved into the magazine "Naval Aviation News". In 1924, she left the Bureau to marry Lieutenant Commander Lewis Hancock, Jr., who lost his life when USS Shenandoah (ZR-1) crashed in September 1925.

     Joy Bright Hancock returned to the Bureau after attending Foreign Service School and obtaining a private pilot's license. For more than a decade before World War II and into the first year of that conflict, she was responsible for the Bureau's public affairs activities. In October 1942, she was commissioned a Lieutenant in the new Women's Reserve (WAVES). She initially served as WAVES representative in the Bureau of Aeronautics and later in a similar position for the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Air), rising to the rank of Commander by the end of the War.

     In February 1946, Commander Hancock became the Assistant Director (Plans) of the Women's Reserve and was promoted to WAVES' Director, with the rank of Captain, in July of that year. She guided the WAVES through the difficult years of Naval contraction in the later 1940s and the expansion of the early 1950s, a period that also saw the Navy's women achieve status as part of the Regular Navy. Captain Hancock retired from active duty in June 1953. The next year, she married Vice Admiral Ralph A. Ofstie and accompanied him on his 1955-56 tour as Commander, Sixth Fleet. Following her husband's death in late 1956, she lived in the Washington, D.C., area and in the Virgin Islands. She died on 20 August 1986.