Rand Morimoto Addresses Graduate & Professional Studies Class of 2019

Good morning, thank you, and congratulations graduates! As President Donahue asked me to be the Commencement speaker, I was trying to think, “what would I talk about?” You aren't a group of 21-, 22-year-olds that this is your first time out of school....I’d say go out, get a job, and do well. But, this is the Graduate and Professional Studies Commencement ceremony. Twenty-six years ago, I sat there, as you, going to school while working and having family responsibilities. And I thought back to where I was in life, and things were very different then. I was running a business; I was doing my MBA to gain more skills to help me run my business. There wasn’t even a glimmer in my mind that after graduating I’d go on advising presidents, writing books, or being the Commencement speaker here at Saint Mary’s College.

I recollected one thing that the Commencement speaker said that day. He said, “Think of what you’re going to do after you leave today.” And I'm like, “I've spent the past several months going to school. Let’s see; I’ve got the leaky faucet in the back sink that I have to fix that I’ve been putting off. The gardening hasn’t been done in six months. In the last 30 days, I’ve been buried in final projects, papers, and presentations to complete before graduation. I haven’t seen my family or friends in weeks. I knew exactly what I was going to do after this graduation ceremony is over, right?”

But, then the Commencement speaker went on, and he said, “No, no, no—not that; it’s what something that you learned or experienced in the past few months that if you can change or improve upon, you’ll be able to change your life and do things that will be different in your future.” That’s when I narrowed down in my mind that it was here at Saint Mary’s that I found my voice. After I left here, I was able to communicate effectively. Because before I came to Saint Mary’s College—I went to a large university; I went to a large high school; I always was the person that preferred to not be called on.

I hid behind the person in front of me so I’d blend in to the classroom. You would have never caught me up front here talking because I would’ve been petrified and scared to death. And the difference was when I started here at Saint Mary’s, as a lot of the professors and Brothers who were here remember me will recall, I was the quiet one. But that doesn’t last long here at Saint Mary’s. With small class sizes, you’re frequently seated in circles to talk and share ideas. You have to communicate. And so, I went from this person that always had the opportunity to hide to being required to speak up, whether I wanted to or not. 

And so I said to myself on graduation day, I am going to learn how to be able to get in front of a group of people and talk. I’m going to be able to try to communicate. I think that will help my business if I was able to go out and talk about my company.

After graduation, a couple of months passed while I took care of all those things that I had to take care of, but then I was volunteering at the alumni association one day, and I met another one of the members of my MBA cohort, and he asked me, “So, what’s your one thing?” I said, “What one thing?” He said, “You remember graduation, that one thing that you said you were gonna do?” I'm like, “I haven’t done anything with that.” He said, “Well, how about you join me and speak at an upcoming Chamber of Commerce meeting?” I said sure. So, he lined me up, and I spoke at the Chamber of Commerce meeting, a good 25 to 30 people in the room there. I was frightened to death; I couldn’t sleep the night before. I was standing up front and kind of shaking as I always used to do before speaking. But I did it. And then somebody at the Chamber of Commerce said, “Would you come and speak at the Rotary Club?” And I said sure. So, I spoke there in front of another 20 to 30 people, and I got more comfortable with it. 

A friend of mine said, “Why don't you speak at a technology conference? You’re in the tech industry.” And I said, “OK, how does one do that?” And he walked me through the process to sign up to be able to speak at a conference, and now all of sudden I was speaking in front of 50 to 80 people about the technology stuff my company did. And I was finding that, wow…that it’s actually not that bad once you do it. I was now speaking every month someplace about technology, and I was feeling a little bit more comfortable each and every time I spoke.

At one of these speaking gigs, I was speaking at a government conference and Vice President Al Gore was there, and we had about a half hour before he was up to speak, and he asked me, “What do you know about Y2K?” So, this is the mid-’90s, and I shared with the vice president what I knew about Y2K, and he said, “Would you like to be a Y2K advisor to President Clinton?” I said sure! I didn’t know what that meant, but I came to realize it meant traveling to Washington, D.C., for the next three and a half years and speaking around the country about Y2K, helping companies and government agencies prepare for Y2K.

Now, of course, no planes fell out of the sky, and the power grid didn’t die. But, I was thinking at the time that I was doing this whole Y2K thing and we were connecting computers to the Internet to be able to patch them and update them that somebody can go through the Internet and access and potentially hack our systems. So, I wrote a book on cybersecurity and cyberterrorism, and the book had mixed reviews because some people say yeah well, that security stuff is important; but you’ve got to remember back in those days, there wasn’t a lot of sophistication around the use of computers. And I even wrote in the book there is an opportunity that the Russians can actually connect in and influence our elections. This was in 1999!  I love the Mueller Report; it came back and finally vindicated me, 20 years later, of the possibility that our elections can be influenced over the Internet. It only takes 20 years for something that I say to actually be right.  

A few months after my book was published, I got a call from the President (George W.) Bush White House asking if I would be an advisor on cybersecurity to the White House. And I said sure—I didn’t know what that meant, but for the next five years, I was commuting back and forth to Washington every week. 

At around the same time, one of my cohort members was on the Board of Regents at Saint Mary’s and said, “Since you’ve been so active in alumni activities, would you be interested in joining the Board of Regents at Saint Mary’s College? I didn’t exactly know what that meant, but I said sure. And for the next eight years, I expanded my volunteer work at the College. I joined the Board of Directors for the Chabot Space and Science Center because one of my friends knew I was interested in science and astronomy. And then one of the members on the Board at Chabot was a member of the Fulbright Scholars organization, and she said, “Would you like to join the Institute International Education’s board?’ I said sure! And so, I went on to help the organization that runs the Fulbright Scholarship program. I guess maybe that’s one of my problems: I say yes so easily. But, it’s opened up so many new doors and opportunities for me.

And it all started here: Twenty-six years ago when I thought I was at the peak of my career, little did I know that graduation day was just the start of this whole new chapter of my life. I sum up all that I’ve learned and been able to do since graduating here with four C’s.

(1) Credentials: That’s what you’re here for, to get that diploma or certificate that says you completed that education and you have that knowledge.
(2) Communications: As I’ve shared with you, just because you have the knowledge, if you don’t go out and share it with people, it’s just sitting in your head. So, you have to go out and a share that wisdom and information with others.
 (3) Contacts: I couldn’t have done everything I’ve done if people didn’t help me, didn’t grab me and say, “Hey, Rand, come and do this with me. Rand, come join me, do that.” People helped me along the way. So, the contacts I’ve made have been so important to all I’ve accomplished.
(4) Community: Giving back to the community and those who have helped me along the way, and volunteering my time to give back. I’ve always said yes, not trying to figure out what’s in it for me, but to simply volunteer, help out, do things for others that have opened so many doors for me without even asking.

So, credentials, communications, contacts, and community. 

So, as I sat here 26 years ago, it was the first day of this change in my life to what it is today. I will leave you with one challenge.

What is that one thing that you’re going to do, that you can overcome, that if you can do it will change your life—so that when you come back here 20 years from now, we can say, “Today was the First Day of your New Tomorrow.” 

Congratulations, thank you, and Go Gaels!

Rand Morimoto, MBA ’93,PhD 
Saint Mary’s College Graduate and Professional Studies Commencement Speaker
Sunday, May 26, 2019