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June 12, 2005

Graduation Speech

This is the text of the speech I delivered at last night's UW Business School graduation ceremony in Meany Hall:

"I know we have parents and families in the audience tonight, and many of them have suspected that we’ve been goofing off here at school. However, I am here to tell you, that, while we do play hard, we’ve accomplished a lot. Since we started in September 2003, the Class of 2005 has spent more than 300 days in classes, taken at least 25 different subjects, and invested more than 1,000 hours simply attending lectures.

(Although admittedly, that number is a little lower for Mike Dietzman.)

Of course, that 1000 hours is just lecture time, which is the tip of the iceberg. It doesn’t count the other time we spent studying for classes, meeting with our teams, writing reports and preparing presentations, getting involved with clubs, working with our career coaches, attending networking and speaker events, and, of course, looking for internships, and later, jobs.

Despite these intense commitments, we have succeeded, and we succeeded with style. The Class of 2005:

• Raised more money than any class in school history in our Challenge For Charity auction;
• Placed third in Western Regional Venture Capital Competition;
• Won the Pac10-Big10 MBA Case Competition;
• Left the school facilities in better shape than we found them with our improvements to the lounge;
• And consumed at least 450 gallons of beer at TGs. Now, that represents 7,200 cups, or - as Joe Tyson would call it - "a good weekend."

On the personal side, we ran marathons, traveled to Argentina, China, and Japan, studied abroad in Paris and Manchester, had a few engagements and weddings, and we even welcomed five babies into the world.

In short - we are an extraordinary group, and we’ve done extraordinary things.

Be proud.

However.

Talking about the five new kids in our class should remind us that we have not, by any stretch, done this on our own. I mean – Ed, Mike, Sean, Yongki and Dan – you guys are talented, but I’m confident your wives had a pretty big role to play bringing your kids into the world.

Sitting here tonight are the spouses, partners and significant others of the people in our program. These people have showered us with love and support as we’ve been on this journey.

I’m talking about tiptoeing around the apartment so we could get some quiet study time ... always being willing to meet our new "MBA Friends" ... dealing with the endless business school chatter about projects and professors and blah blah blah... and coming to our TGs, formal parties, and get-togethers, always with a smile.

There’s the million little things, too – the small kindnesses, like doing our dishes, folding our clothes, massaging a sore neck after a long day, or picking up the kids from day care.

I know I speak for the entire class of 2005 when I say we simply could not have done this without you.

Please join me in thanking them.

Lately, I’ve been asking people about their favorite business school memories.

Universally, people have said their best memories were ones where they got to work with, learn from, or be around other people in our class. This makes total sense to me, because my favorite memory comes from PRIME week.

Now, I know most of you here tonight weren’t there, so – you have to imagine. Classes haven’t started yet. We’re just two days in to our weeklong MBA orientation, and everything is new. We’re jittery, a little scared of one another. And all 113 of us are in the Boeing Auditorium, when Dan Poston, the Program Director, stands up in the front of the room and asks us for a volunteer.

Finally, one of our classmates, Brian, raises his hand. Dan calls him down to the front of the auditorium and says, "Tell everyone your name, and what you’d like to do after you graduate."

Well, as it turns out, Brian wants to work for a Port.

So then Dan turns to all of us and says, "Now, who here can help Brian?"

And this is the amazing thing.

Slowly, a number of hands go up. And then a few more. And then a few more. Someone knows someone at the Port of Tacoma. Someone else’s dad is good friends with a VP of a shipping company. And on it goes, and on and on, and suddenly we are all smiling and nodding and realizing that the very thing that we all hoped to get from the program ...

... is really each other.

This is the University of Washington MBA program. Good, smart people, working together and helping each other. I love it because it demonstrates how invested we are in one another’s success.

In that room, on that day, we worked together. Mechanical engineers and music majors and marketing geeks and former Anderson consultants all stepped forward to help one of our own.For the last two years, our class has continued what we started that day, be it:

• organizing exam-review sessions;
• or tutoring one another;
• or listening and supporting each other as we went through tough personal times;
• or covering for a teammate who was away working their guts out on the charity auction;
• or e-mailing one another jobs we thought might be interesting;
• or, apparently, dating each other. (I mean, we like each other, but seven couples out of 113 people? C’mon...)

And here we are, June 11, and we’re coming across the finish line together. We won as a team.

That is who we are, and that is what we stand for.

Our class can expect very interesting and exciting lives. We’re all re-launching our careers, taking steps in new directions.

This is only going to accelerate as we each get more experience, more resources, and more wisdom about who we are and who we want to be.

I fully expect that we’ll surprise one another over the next 5, 10, 20, 40 years. As people take their second or third job, get married, move to foreign countries, look for new challenges, the news will be interesting and surprising, and I’m eager to hear it. For example:

• Devi, Amy and Kim might well decide to start their own biotech outfit;
• Chris Meyer could rival Paul Allen for real estate development projects;
• Meredith may wind up running the Gates Foundation;
• Matt Minas might find himself in job that requires him to wear something other than shorts;
• And - this may hard to believe, but – Balu might actually leave Microsoft some day.

So come what may, we must stick together.

Dennis is off to Japan, Lily to Taiwan, and Brian O’ Brien to Spain. John Sousa’s going to San Francisco, and Flavio to San Diego.

But our class has more communications technologies at our disposal than any MBA class in history.

So, everyone - John Bernie has put together a Yahoo group for us. Get on it.

Patrick Chinnavaso has built a spreadsheet with everyone’s contact data. Make sure you’re on that, too.

And, from time to time, check in. Send out a note to the mailing list, or reach out to someone you’re wondering about. Don’t be shy.

Because wherever you go in your life, and whatever you choose to do, please know that we will always have this experience in common. It will always be true that we went to business school together ... graduated business school together ...and the University of Washington business school is about succeeding together.

Thank you all for two of the best years of my life.

And, Marnie? Happy Birthday.

Good night."

Posted by Gavin Shearer at June 12, 2005 7:13 AM. Posted to UW MBA.

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