ÁÔÆæÖØ¿Ú

Good afternoon, everybody.What a great honor it is to be in my hometown to speak to the 2025 graduating class of my Alma Mater – the ÁÔÆæÖØ¿Ú…….

I want to thank President Bodnar, the faculty and the staff for asking me to be here again today. I also had the honor of being the Commencement Speaker in 2018. And ….. If I’m being honest - I was kind of wondering then if I was going to get an honorary doctorate ….

Well - this time when President Bodnar asked me to speak, he told me it included an Honorary Doctorate degree. Wow. I am so honored and I am so grateful.

I think the staff at Rattlesnake Grade School back in the 70s would probably say they didn’t see this coming ……. but you never know at that age how things are going to play out; …. But I am confident the 1979 – 1982 staff at Hellgate High is in shock and disbelief.
Me standing up here today is proof that in fact - ANYTHING is actually possible.

I graduated from this University in 1986 and have had an incredible journey that started in public accounting and then a 28 year career at Nike where I traveled and lived all over the world.

But honestly, nothing beats coming back to ÁÔÆæÖØ¿Ú and I’m very happy to be here today!

This community is a huge part of what made me who I am. Many of my friends today are friends I have from grade school, high school and this university. And they’re one of the most important reasons I try and spend as much time as I can here in Missoula and what I believe is the best place in the world – Flathead Lake.

And speaking of community, I want to extend a big thank you to all of you for being here to support your friends, your significant others and your family members who are graduating today.

I have spent a good part of my life trying to be a son my parents are proud of. Now I’m trying to be a parent my kids are proud of and with any luck I’ll live long enough to try and make my six young grandkids proud too. My amazing wife Blair (shoutout to Blair) and I have five adult children in our blended family – one of whom graduated from this University in 2017 (shoutout to Cooper).

All of them know how important this University is to me.

This commencement speaker role is tricky... You need to be relevant to a very diverse group of people. Be entertaining. Be funny. And most of all –let’s be honest – BE BRIEF - because I know most of you won’t listen or won’t remember what I say and just want to get on to the celebrating. I get it!To the graduating class of 2025 – the world is a crazy ass place. I don’t think you want or need me to share with you why I think that or how I think it happened. It just is.

What I do want to do is share a few things I’ve learned since I left this campus 39 years ago I hope will help you use the extraordinary innovation, technology and intellect that exists today (and will increase going forward) to lead and manage yourself …… and the rest of us …..in to the future. No small task …. but I am confident you’re now equipped to take it on. (PAUSE)

First, keep the aperture on your professional life - and your personal life - as open as you can for as long as you can.  I know most of you don’t know what ‘aperture’ means because you have never owned a camera that wasn't intergrated in your phone ……in other words …..Stay as open minded and opportunistic as you can for as long as you can.

When I graduated, I had the opportunity to stay in Missoula or move to Portland. As you know, I love Missoula, but I thought if I didn’t take the offer in Portland, I might not get the chance again and I knew I could always come back home if it didn’t work out.

When Nike asked me to move to Europe, it was right after our third child was born and I wasn’t sure about moving three young kids overseas.

For most of my life, Spokane was the “big city” and the idea of living in Amsterdam was kinda intimidating.
But I thought I might never get the opportunity again and I could always come back if it didn’t work out. We lived there for five of the best years of my life.

The same was true when they asked me to leave what I thought was my forever career track in Finance and take over and run Nike’s massive footwear business.

These types of decisions, where you have to take a chance, happen all the time over the course of one’s life.

And almost all decisions – both personal and professional – especially as you get older – involve a compromise.

So be thoughtful AND purposeful about what you are and are not willing to compromise.

And then make decisions that provide you the most opportunity to grow. Think about the future. Life changes over time and the window of opportunity eventually starts to close…
(think kids, ailing parents, spouses careers, your health) … and you want to have made the most of it while you were able to.

Second, Know what you don’t know.When I was asked to run Global Product at Nike it included managing Design and Innovation among many other responsibilities. It was pretty obvious to me – and everybody else - I did not get the job because of my creative skills.

Instead, I decided my job was to create an environment where everybody could be their authentic self and be inspired to do their best work every single day.

Nobody wants to work for or with somebody who thinks they know everything or believes their job title somehow implies expertise in areas they don’t possess.

So, know what you don’t know and surround yourself with good people who do know what you don’t. This is a path to success ….. in both your professional and personal life.

Third, Have a bias for action. Be somebody who makes decisions and gets things done.

Too many people sit on the sidelines waiting for more information or overwhelmed by too much information, pointing out problems, or for someone else to step forward. The world is a complicated place ……….keep yourself and the people you work with and the people you love, moving forward.

Nike’s winning offense is based on making decisions and taking risks. If you make a bad decision – it is better to fail quickly and fail forward – learning from your mistakes - than to not make decisions. I made many mistakes in my career at Nike but always took time to learn from them and was better for it.

I apply this to my personal life as well. I try and live my life on the basis that I want to look back and regret the things I did, not the things I did not do. And there are plenty of regrets.
I have regrets with how I handled certain situations, certain decisions I have made. I regret certain risks I have taken. But I have tried to learn from all of them, so I can be better.

So …. Trust your gut ….. take action, learn and BE BETTER.

Let’s finish with why I think today is so important in your journey.

ONE: I believe very strongly in the power of both a degree and an education. TWO: They are very different things. And THREE: You will need both.

I started my career with my degree. I went to work for the public accounting firm Price Waterhouse in Portland. 

Clearly my degree in Accounting was the main driver to getting the job with Price Waterhouse. And it continued to be very important in my career as a Certified Public Accountant.

The importance of your degree will also be true for many of you here today.

After seven years at Price Waterhouse, I took a job with my favorite client – Nike.

Three years into my Nike career I was asked to move to Europe and be the CFO for Nike Europe. Two years later I was asked to transfer out of finance and run the European Footwear business. And that CFO role in Europe - was the last finance job I have had in my career – more than 30 years ago.

After that, I held a variety of jobs across the company. For twelve years of my career I ran the product organization for Nike as I mentioned earlier – innovation, design, merchandising, engineering, development, product marketing, manufacturing.

Lets all please pause for a moment and imagine a kid with an Accounting degree from the ÁÔÆæÖØ¿Ú running the Design, Innovation and Product functions of one of the biggest and best product companies in the world!!!

Crazy right?? People constantly asked me how that happened – both inside and outside of Nike ….. I’m still not sure I could tell you.

But I do know those opportunities didn’t come because I had a degree in Accounting – even one from the ÁÔÆæÖØ¿Ú!

My finance acumen and the business skills I learned as part of getting that degree certainly were important, but those opportunities came because I kept learning new skills, new competencies and new tools to be successful and applying them.
I tried to always be self-aware. I learned from my mistakes and learned from people I surrounded myself with who knew what I didn’t.

This is the real value of the education I received at the ÁÔÆæÖØ¿Ú.

It taught me the power of learning and how to be learning agile throughout my career and my life.

You now have an education that gives you the skillsets to continue learning the rest of YOUR life. And this learning agility is one of -- if not THE - most critical skill you can possess today.

So, no matter what your next step is – continuing your education; running the family business; working in a large multi-national organization; starting your own business; being the head of the household; whatever you do – your success will depend on how fast you can assimilate new information, simplify it and learn new methods of working and new ways of thinking through problems.

This is the value of the education you received at the ÁÔÆæÖØ¿Ú.

Please do not let it go to waste. Be curious …. and Always be learning.

Today I join in celebrating you and your degree with your family and friends and the staff and administration at this great University. But just as importantly I also congratulate you on your education.

May you use both to go forth and do good in the world.

Thank you very much! Happy Mother’s Day Eve to all of the mothers here today and ….

Go Griz!