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<h1 class="nist-page__title">The Greatest Compliment One Can Pay Is, &quot;You Made a Difference&quot; – 2013 Commencement Address University of Pittsburgh</h1>
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<div class="datetime"><time datetime="2013-04-28T12:00:00Z">April 28, 2013</time>
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<p>Dr. Patrick Gallagher<br>Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and NIST Director&nbsp;</p>
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<p>I want to thank you for this tremendous honor.</p><p>To be recognized by the most precious thing that a university has to offer [an honorary doctoral degree] is really deeply humbling. I also want to thank the trustees of the University of Pittsburgh and the faculty for their role in this remarkable recognition.</p><p>Usually when your life passes before you like you just heard in that citation, that's not a good thing. But I think in this case, it's very positive.</p><p>So first of all, I'd like to say to the class of 2013: Congratulations. You did it!</p><p>You are now going to be welcomed into alumni-hood, with all that it entails. And I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to be your commencement speaker today.</p><p>This is actually a particular treat for me for several reasons. One: coming back to Pittsburgh. This is the city where my mother grew up, where my family was born, where I spent a lot of my childhood. In fact, I spent part of second grade here, met my wife here, developed my preferences in professional sports here. (Please don't tell my friends in D.C. that I just said that!)</p><p>It's also great to be back at Pitt. As you will find, this has been a transformative experience, and formative in many ways that you both appreciate now and will appreciate later.</p><p>And finally, it's great to be back at Pitt because I actually never attended my own graduation ceremony. So, 22 years late, it's good to be here.</p><p>The reason behind that—and some of the grad students here may understand this—has to do with logistics. My wife and I were in a hurry to get married, and I had not yet completed my thesis. So we reached a compromise, which was that we would go ahead and get married in June. In fact, Jim Maher, my thesis advisor, joined us for the wedding. Jim, I think you got me an alarm clock, if I remember correctly, as a wedding gift. Which says something about me, I think.</p><p>So we got married in June, but we didn't go on our honeymoon. I couldn't go on my honeymoon until I finished my thesis, which was a pretty powerful motivator. I think the only thing that got me through it was one, knowing I could go on my honeymoon to Hawaii. And two, it was also the time when the Pittsburgh Penguins were doing their first march to the Stanley Cup. So somehow that combination got me through. Hopefully, this is not happening to you—I hope they're not putting this kind of pressure on you to get there.</p><p>I wanted to start by recognizing two groups of folks who are basically essential to you being here today. The first is the faculty—the professors whom you've worked with over all these years.</p><p>My journey to Pittsburgh, as you heard, was through being a high school science teacher for a year. It was a remarkable experience, because watching your students learn and grow is, in fact, an uneven process. There are days where it's remarkable and other days where you're sure you haven't accomplished anything. And yet at the end, a powerful journey has occurred before your eyes, and young adults have, in fact, blossomed. And I know that the faculty here who share so much passion for their work feel the same way today.</p><p>The other group, of course, is your family and friends who are gathered here. Again, I don't think I had this perspective before, but now being a parent, with my oldest son in college and watching him grow up and become independent, brings an entirely new perspective to what I'm sure your parents are feeling today for you. It's both intensely frustrating to let go and let you grow up without our intense help and scrutiny, but it's also incredibly rewarding. And to add a little extra excitement, we do this by watching as we watch our bank accounts trickle down to zero. You'll experience that, too.</p><p>So, before we go any further, let me ask you to join me in thanking your parents and teachers.&nbsp;</p><p>I must confess that I've always found the idea of a commencement address to be a little bit baffling, because when I was sitting where you are, I was not really focus
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<p>Dr. Patrick Gallagher<br>Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and NIST Director&nbsp;</p>
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<div class="text-long"><p>University of Pittsburgh<br>Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania</p></div>
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Created April 30, 2013, Updated December 29, 2016
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