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I’ve known so many MCC graduates and what great success stories they are, like our own trustee, Rich Warshof, sitting behind me; Mayor Bob Duffy; professional baseball pitcher Tim Redding; Olympic skater Cathy Turner; pro golfer Jeff Sluman; and so many more who are not in the headlines—the area businessmen, the engineers, the doctors, the police officers, the nurses. Every field! And, of course, you’d all be surprised how many of MCC’s faculty and staff are MCC graduates as well.

I know many of you who are graduating here tonight and I’ll look forward to your successes. In preparing remarks for this evening I asked advice from several of my senior staff and from many students, some of the students who I’ve sat down and talked with. I wanted to make sure I connected with you. The last thing I wanted to do was to give a graduation speech that went right over your head and you didn’t care about. I didn’t want to talk about politics or challenges that you will have or how hard you’re going to have to work. You know all those things. You’ve heard about the “brain drain” already in Rochester. I hope all of you stay in our community but I don’t want to spend a lot of time on that. What I wanted to talk with you about, and what the students said as well, is talk about opportunities.

Opportunities are here. They’re all around you every day. We live in a world of opportunities. But how do you consistently recognize the opportunities? How do you consistently make the right decisions to deal with the opportunities?

Now I know many of you feel uncertain about your future. You say, “So what! I have my college degree. What’s next? Okay, I’m all set to go to a four-year school.” or “I’ve just gotten a pretty good job, I think.” But you still have the nagging question, “What am I going to do with my life? What am I really gonna do?” I want you to know there are people sitting here in this audience tonight who’ve had jobs for eight, 10, 12, 20 years and they have that same nagging feeling. No one should ever be satisfied that they’ve reached the end of what they can accomplish.

As I’ve pursued this topic with some of our student leaders they’ve said to me, “Show your story. Show how you became the president of a college.” Show how a boy raised in a little town with a population of 800 people along the Illinois River with parents who never went to high school becomes a college president. Show how his brother is also a college president today. So I’m going to share some of that with you. But the story itself is not important. What is important are the points where opportunities were presented and choices were made.

As I look back, my brother and I were very close. As I look back neither he nor I closed many doors that were open to us. We may not have walked through them at that time but we always kept them open for a later date.

As I look back, my first life remembrances are cloudy as I am sure yours are. At age five or six I recall my father was not at home. He was in World War II and I recall staying with my grandparents and saying prayers every night at the foot of the bed. My mother was working at a war factory about 20 miles away. By age 7 or 8, I remember my dad had returned and I remember the small house we lived in. If some of you think back when you were seven or eight you can think of things like this. The small house we lived in had no heating system other than a stove in the middle of the living room which was coal-fired. In the kitchen was a stove my mother cooked on which was coal-fired, and a bedroom off to one side and then through that bedroom into a second bedroom. The first was where my parents were and the second was where three siblings stayed. I remember a window above the bed. There was a double bed where my brother and I slept and a single bed at the bottom of that where my sister slept. I could stand up on the bed and I could look out this window and see a little house. And this little house was the outhouse. We didn’t have plumbing and this was the first time that I remember I ever took advantage of an opportunity. You see, I would wait until I saw my father or heard him go out to the outhouse and it was wintertime—I’d try to go out right after he left there because he was a big man and he always left a little bit of warmth in there and I would enjoy that.

I went to school where all the grades, one through 12, were in one building. The school had an eight-man football team. Eight-man football teams—yes! There were several of those little towns along the Illinois River and they couldn’t field 11-man teams and so there were eight-man teams. I need to tell you something that will probably surprise most of you. When I was in junior high, seventh and eighth grade, I did not even know about college. I did not know anyone who’d ever gone to college. The only thing I remember is that in that farming community, one of the great jobs was on a barge that went up and down the Illinois River hauling grain. That was considered a great job. That would be an opportunity. But that wasn’t for me in the seventh and eighth grade because at that time I was expected to work in the fields helping the family. You see, ever since my dad came back from World War II, he was a farm hand. That was the only type of work he could get. But then an opportunity came up—and what I want you to remember here is that there are choices and decisions when opportunities come up.

Somehow, my father learned about a company called Caterpillar Tractor up in Peoria, Illinois, about a hundred miles from where we lived. He went up there and he got a job. Now keep in mind this was a family that had lived for decades and generations in this little town of 800 people on the Illinois River. He made the decision to move his family up to a little town outside of Peoria called Canton, Illinois – a town of about 10,000 people. I remember well the day we left. I remember both my grandparents with tears in their eyes. Now, today you wouldn’t think a hundred miles was very far but it was a long way at that time.

We adjusted well in this new town. Sports were very important there, and my brother and I had a little bit of talent and were offered athletic scholarships to go to college. All of a sudden I had a goal. My goal was to be a high school math teacher and a high school basketball coach. A college scholarship gave me an important opportunity .

My brother and I finished our undergraduate work and we were both offered graduate assistantships—another opportunity! We knew about those, of course, and we worked to get those. My goal to teach math and coach basketball was achieved after finishing those two degrees. I took a job in Florida in a prep school a long way from my little Illinois town. On the way to that dream job I married the greatest lady in the world (and maybe you students know my wife, Katie, sitting right over here. Give her applause because in just a few days we’ll be celebrating our 45th wedding anniversary.) Now, Kate, we’ve got to keep it together now for a few more days because they’ve already given us a good cheer.

But you know, opportunity . . . . I had a great job now. I had just what I’d really worked hard for. But you need to remember—even when you get where you want to be, you must continue to look for opportunities.

I met Joe Gould. Joe had been a vice president at Syracuse University and had connections all around the country. He watched me work. We lived in a residence hall at this prep school and he watched me work with the students and he said, “Tom, you’re made to work in a college. You ought to be in college administration.” His advice pushed me on. We took the opportunity to interview for a job at Syracuse University, Lycoming College in Pennsylvania, and Rutgers University and, lo and behold, we were offered jobs at both Syracuse and Rutgers University and we took the job at Rutgers University. (Sorry Tony Felicetti!)

I took the job of assistant dean at Rutgers University in charge of student activities. After two years I was promoted to associate dean. And I really had it made now, folks, let me tell you! I’m at a Division I college. I loved administration work. On Saturdays I was at the football games. I had box seats at basketball games. What could be better?

Well, it was out there—another opportunity!

I learned about the 23 community colleges in New Jersey. After I understood their mission, I knew this was where I belonged. In 1969 I left all the wonderful things that I had at the university and I moved to Ocean County College where I stayed five years, helping build one of the finest two-year colleges in the country. Now I need to confess there were many days at this small community college when I wondered why I ever left a major university for this—because it was hard! But I loved working with the students and I knew the reason I’d left and it was called “access.” This was the place. In my heart I believe so strongly that every citizen in our country should have a right to go to college and move forward and they could not do it where I lived before.

I think back to that little town on the Illinois River. The only access that my brother and I had to go on to higher education was athletics. My sister had no access. There were not sports for girls at that time and she would never have been able to afford to go to college. Today there is a community college in that area serving many of those little towns, and there’s access there for everybody because of the community college system in this nation.

Then another opportunity came along. In 1974—I’m nominated for a job here as vice president for Monroe Community College. Following a careful review by the College and by Kate and me—Kate and I, two small children, two cats and a dog moved to Rochester and I began the most rewarding 34-year career one could ever hope for. I knew there were great possibilities at MCC, but I could never have dreamt how important MCC would become to the Greater Rochester area. You’re graduating from one of the greatest two-year colleges in the nation; one whose graduates are highly sought after by four-year colleges, business and industry.

So—there you have it! In just a few minutes I’ve shared a story covering nearly 65 years. I’ve told you a story here today of how you and I come here to meet. I trust you readily see it was a story of opportunities, not only for me, but for you, because you had to get here, too. Of course due to time and the risk of boring you, much was left out. For example, I dropped out of college after a year and a half. I was out three years playing basketball, baseball, and working at different jobs. You know, life was good! I was making pretty good money. I had a nice car. But then when those opportunities came along. The college came and offered me another scholarship to come back to their athletic department. If I had not accepted that opportunity, I wouldn’t be standing here today.

So no matter who you are, you will have opportunities and you will have choices and decisions. It’s those choices and decisions that will define your life. I have such great confidence in all of you but you have to have confidence in yourself and confidence comes from how you handle your life experiences. As you build on your life experiences, you acquire what many of us call our “life lessons.”

Let me close with just a few of the many life lessons you may want to consider as you move forward. Number one, which I place highest of all: Nothing replaces honesty, integrity, and ethical behavior. Nothing replaces honesty, integrity, and ethical behavior!

No matter how difficult the time, live with a positive outlook. You know many whose glass is always half empty. Let yours be half full.

Set your goals as high as you think reasonable—and then move them just a little bit higher. And keep moving them up!

Reach for the “right fit” in your position in life—the right job. And don’t be afraid to change jobs if you’re not happy in your job. I know too many people that are not happy in their jobs. They hate to go to work. Don’t get caught in that trap! Rutgers was a great place and I loved Rutgers but it was not right for me. It didn’t fit. I belonged in the community college and I have to tell you I could probably work in any community college in the country and I’d have a passion for that job because it’s for the access of students.

And take warning from an anonymous author. “On the road to the future, at every crossroads, thousands have been assigned to guard the past.” In other words, don’t let people tell you you can’t do something. They’re what I call dream killers. If you have something you want to do, you go for it!

And lastly, and I see this all the time at MCC because it’s infectious. One day I was walking down the hall with the SUNY Chancellor Tom Egan. As we walked down the hall I would smile and say “hello” to students, who would then smile and say “hello” to me. The Chancellor said to me, “I can’t believe you know all these people!” I said, “Tom, I didn’t know a one of them.” And that’s my last life lesson suggestion: When you pass someone, smile and say hello. They may be having a bad day and you may have just made it a little bit brighter for them.

So as I close tonight, I want to thank you very much for allowing me to say these few words to you, and I want all of you to have the greatest, greatest life. But just look for the opportunities and don’t be afraid to make a decision. Thank you very much.