hank you for inviting me to speak on this very special occasion.

Today, I will attempt to follow the 3 “B’s” of good public speaking: Be brief Be blunt Be gone!! This is called a Graduation Ceremony or in some places called Commencement. I personally like the word Commencement as it signifies the start of something new, a new adventure, a new beginning, and the start of the rest of your life. It signifies an opportunity for you to be different. To perhaps forget the past and take on a new direction.

So may I suggest that you start by thanking those parents, partners and friends who have supported you in this phase of your life’s journey? Take the time to honour them for caring for you and supporting you in making you what you are today.

Let us also thank those behind me and others that gave their best to your education. They are professionals in education who have dedicated their lives to teaching others. They have passed on to you the special wisdoms that they have obtained in hopes that you will use them to make the world a better place. What a great privilege and responsibility they carry. At times you may not have appreciated the work they made you do or the way in which they marked your assignments. But they did it to encourage you and to sometimes make you do the difficult things that we all have to do to be what we were meant to be. They have done their best to prepare you for an exciting future.

To me, this is an exciting University. It is a university that sees beyond the boundaries of Australia. This is a University that recognises that we live in a World and not an island continent. This university and the environment they have created reach out to the World. They bring into Australia the best candidates for this educational opportunity. Those that have this University experience take with them a part of Australia: the way we value other people and the values we aspire to as an example for the rest of the World.

Now I would like to address the graduates; First of all, congratulations on achieving the honour that is being bestowed on you today! We salute you! Most of you have come from other countries. You have taken the bold step to leave family and friends to learn in this land of Australia.

Many of you have also worked as well as attending the university which as made it even more challenging.

What a privilege you have had to attend with others from so many different countries and cultures. Please take that home and to your new work.

I would also encourage you to use your education to help those who have not had the same opportunities as you have had. You may want to get in involved with organisations such as Kiwanis International whose mission is to serve the children of the world.

Now for some personal advice.

Throughout you life, there are those “special” people that see in you what you do not see in yourself. They are usually family, friends, teachers, business associates, and many times, your manager. They have an external view of how you come across to other people. Many times, they see in you that “special person” that they have always wanted to be with or work for. Continue to listen to those who see in you things that you do not see in yourself.

I would not be here today if I had listened only to my self.

I thank those who cared about me enough to show me another part of myself that I did not understand.

When I graduated from year 12, I had a vision of what life would be like for me and what I would become. But never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that I would have done the things that I have done, been in the places I have been and achieved what I have achieved. I thought I would attend Ohio State University and become an electrical engineer for the local electrical power company and live in the small Ohio farming community where I was born.

However, life has been very different than that for me. As an example, in 1988 I was managing a team of Electronic Data Systems staff working on a number of projects for AT&T which was the only telephone company in the USA. The government ruled that it would be broken into nine companies and we were helping that to happen.

As a part of the break-up, AT&T had tried to build a new billing system for their 95 million customers and after spending three years and spending many millions of dollars, it did not work. It was a disaster. Without any notice, Bill Garrett one of the AT&T senior managers invited me to leave EDS and come to AT&T to fix this disaster. My response was that I did not want to leave EDS and besides, the project was far too big a problem for me and it was a very high risk project. However, Bill saw in me someone that could fix the problem and he was not satisfied with my tactful rejection of his offer. He then went to the President of Electronic Data Systems and I was loaned to AT&T as a senior manager with a staff of over 2,000. What a challenge and something I would have never seen myself doing. It stretched me far beyond what I had ever done. Fourteen months later, the mammoth project was successfully installed. It put me on a new path of