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Gould and Susan Insley -- all of them to be honored here today not for what they have earned, but for what they have learned, and passed on to us.
     It was once possible to hold all the world's known science in one small place. The famous library at Alexandria held the greatest collection of books in the ancient world, and it could be said with some accuracy that all the world's knowledge was represented in the 500,000 volumes stored there.
     It was once possible for a single individual to know most of what COULD be known with the tools available at the time. In the 1800's, a person like this was known as a "Renaissance Man."
     Today, our knowledge can't be possessed by any one person, stored in any one place or even quantified. Today, our ability to generate information has outstripped our ability to manage it, much less comprehend it all. 
     Today, the library at Alexandria could probably be stored in a few CD-ROMS or zip drives. And yet we've just begun.
     In tomorrow's world you will discover answers to questions that today have yet to even be posed, or recognized as questions of import.
     In our kind of world - the world of today and the world of tomorrow - we will not survive unless we can adapt, change and constantly learn.
     I urge you to make a firm commitment to continual learning. This is not just a good philosophy. It is a strategic choice that can guide some of the hard decisions just ahead of you and those to come down the road.
     I have a feeling I know some of what's ahead of you right now. You've attended classes and crammed late at night and on weekends. Some of you have worked at hard or menial jobs to pay tuition or feed a family. You've worked, and you've sacrificed. And now you'll get your diploma and, hopefully, a job.
      I understand how hard it can be to find a job opportunity, or to know which path ahead is the best for you. A little more than a year ago, I also was seeking a job, and I had a lot of questions about what exactly was ((underline))the job for me at that rather pivotal point in my career.
     I sought the advice of Norm Augustine, President and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corporation, and a long-tome friend. Over lunch, Norm asked me about my goals and motivations, and told me a little of how his career had evolved. I learned a lot in our conversation that day. And there's one thing Norm told me that I would like to share with you today. He said that at each of the major milestone of his career when he had to consider job altermatives, he always tried to make the decision based on one thing: ((underline)) which job seemed to offer the best chance to learn more and create the most interesting pathway ahead.((end of underline)) That sometimes meant passing up a short-term payoff in title or salary for the sake of greater long-term opportunities to grow. Norm said this almost always meant someone in his circle of friends and family thought he'd made the wrong choice and passed up the "better" job.

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