| Public servant James A. Johnson gave the keynote address at the Institute's commencement ceremony on May 14, 2006
Thank you, Dean Atwood, for your overly generous introduction. Thank you for your legacy of public service that continues today in your leadership of this great institution. And I thank you for this tremendous honor of serving as your commencement speaker.
Commencement speeches often begin by comparing the commencement speaker to the deceased at an Irish wake – you need the body to have the ceremony, but you don’t expect him to say very much.
Senator Humphrey was once asked to give a commencement speech, and limit his remarks to 12 minutes. He replied, “The last time I spoke for only 12 minutes was when I said hello to my mother."
I would like to begin by offering my deep respect, my affirmation and my congratulations to the Class of 2006 for choosing the eternally noble calling of public service.
For the past 40 years I have enjoyed the blessing and privilege of a career involving public service – in the public sector, the private sector, and the nonprofit sphere. Based on those years I would like to offer you three general observations as you embark on your career in public service.
First, the career you have chosen may be a lot longer than you think. The values that propel you to public service don’t fade away in the aging process.
When Humphrey served as his vice president, President Lyndon Johnson once quipped, “All that Hubert needs over there is a gal to answer the phone and a pencil with an eraser on it.”
Johnson was joking about the role of the vice presidency, which has, with a big forward push from our own Walter Mondale, grown a lot since then. Nevertheless, public service, in virtually any role, really requires two basic assets: A strong mind and a big heart. It does not require physical brawn, though the hours can be grueling. Nor the ability to operate machinery, though a little facility with a computer and a printer can go a long way.
Hence, the notion of a career ending at 59 or 65, a notion born in the Industrial Age, is totally obsolete in Information Age. With some reasonably good health, good luck, and simply riding the wave of increased longevity, your career may span not 30 or 40, but 50 or 60 years. That could well be three-fifths of a century of serious engagement and social impact, doing something that benefits humanity and adds value to the world. I truly believe that the personal fulfillment that flows from serious engagement actually does add years to your life as well as your career.
With this longer career will come even less clarity about where your career will take you. As Yogi Berra said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Just for fun, I looked back on some of the predictions that were made about 60 years ago.
Nineteen forty-six was the year of the first digital computer. IBM chief Tom Watson declared, “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” Popular Mechanics declared that someday, computers will have as few as 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh as little as 3,000 pounds.
Around that time, Henry Ford declared that the VW bug was so small and ugly, it was absolutely unsellable. That was before VW sold 20 million bugs.
An aviation expert declared that, “automobiles will start to decline as soon as the last shot is fired in World War II. Instead of a car in every garage, there will be a helicopter.”
And the New York Times declared that “Anyone suggesting that artificial satellites will ever become inexpensive and dependable enough to permit cost-effective global communications needs to have their head examined.”
Change has always been the only constant in life. The longer the career, the greater the changes you will witness, the greater the opportunities you will have to make change, and the greater the challenge to stay current, well-trained and open to new possibilities.
My second point today is driven by the compelling realities of world demography. Whether your primary focus is in the USA, the industrialized, or the emerging economies, the public you serve will change dramatically.
Forty years ago, in a speech to the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce in Detroit, Hubert Humphrey said, “Foreign policy is really domestic policy with its hat on.”
In his day, many thought there was bright line between foreign and domestic policy.
Today, that bright line is blurring. Tomorrow, it will disappear.
America is becoming the world – ever more diverse, a jambalaya of races, cultures and nationalities. The fiery debate over immigration policy today will seem quaint one day. My hope is that out of that debate we will forge a new sense of strength, unity, identity, and purpose for this nation of immigrants.
I loved a recent cartoon in The New Yorker. It showed a Native American family standing on the shore watching the Mayflower arriving. The father says, “Well, they look undocumented to me.”
Look at the trends for America: If your career does span 60 years, by the middle of your career, the public you serve will be only 50 percent white instead of the 69 percent it is today. Almost one in four Americans will be of Hispanic heritage. The Asian population here will grow by 200 percent.
Communities all over America will be transformed by people from places that many educated Americans cannot even place on a map.
Take a look at Minnesota. In the past 10 years, the percentage of Minnesotans who identified themselves as non-white rose by nearly 50 percent. That non-white identity is expected to double again by the year 2030. The African American population is projected to grow by over 115 percent … the Hispanic population by 184 percent … but the white population by just 17 percent.
Who outside of Minnesota would imagine that this state has the largest communities of people from Cambodia, Somalia, and Liberia in the entire country? Through immigration and refugee resettlement, all told, about 160 countries sent people to Minnesota last year.
As our nation changes, our role in the world is changing as well. The days of American economic predominance are numbered. For the last quarter century, our economy has been growing at about three percent a year. China’s has been growing at nine percent and India’s at six percent. Before your career is over, China may well be the world’s largest economy, and India could have pushed the United States into third place. The ascent of China and India will lift billions of people out of poverty and into the middle class, expanding education, professions, consumption and – yes – competition with the United States.
A son of Minnesota, Tom Friedman, coined the term: The world is flat. The Internet and freer trade are blurring borders and spurring competition across time zones for faster, better, cheaper goods and services and workers.
Thus, America’s success and security will come not from domination but from cooperation – economic, diplomatic, military, cultural, and scientific – institution to institution and person to person.
Within our nation and with others, our global and domestic policies will require a new approach to diversity going well beyond simple tolerance, to respect, acceptance, and embrace.
In the context of this rapid change, an important question is what unique quality can you bring to policymaking? The first part of the answer flows from a core American value – a restless, relentless quest for progress.
The Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville captured that American spirit in a way that still resonates, 200 years later. He wrote:
“They a ll have a lively faith in the perfectibility of man. They judge that the diffusion of knowledge must necessarily be advantageous, and the consequences of ignorance fatal. They consider society as a body in a state of improvement, humanity as a changing scene, in which nothing is, or ought to be, permanent. And they admit that what appears to them today to be good, may be suspended by something better tomorrow.”
Something better tomorrow – that vision has inspired countless individuals to change the world: Franklin Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt … Thurgood Marshall and Nelson Mandela … John and Robert Kennedy … Hubert Humphrey … Rosa Parks . . . Cesar Chavez . . . Dr. King … Mother Teresa . . . and in a different realm, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, and the folks who brought us AOL, Yahoo, and Google.
If every change in our nation and the world is a new chance to serve the public, then the future has a full employment act for you. There is so much work to be done.
That leads to my third and final thought. It is about how you serve the public.
Hubert Humphrey once said, “I learned more about economics from one South Dakota dust storm than I did in all my years of college.”
Right now, after two years at the Humphrey school, you probably have certain assumptions about public service. Over a long career, your real-world experiences almost certainly change those assumptions dramatically.
When I was in your shoes, a fresh graduate of public policy school, I confess: I didn’t really know what I was going to do with my degree.
After I graduated from the University of Minnesota, I spent a year in Washington. Then I went up to the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton because I was fortunate to be offered a scholarship covering all of my costs.
You heard in Dean Atwood’s introduction where that led me. Presidential campaigns, the White House, corporate assignments, large and small, five years on Wall Street, 10 years at Fannie Mae. I was honored to chair two great public institutions – the Kennedy Center and the Brookings Institution. And now I’m at a private investment firm and serve on a number of corporate boards. Everyday I stay focused on politics and public policy because that is where my heart is.
Looking back, I learned a lot. First, I learned that not being to hold down a job isn’t so bad. I also learned that public service is not synonymous with government service.
I learned that most careers do not unfold in a straight line. Your opportunity and impact will derive from a mixture of individual responsibility and entrepreneurial dynamic, whether by serving in government at all levels … the private sector … or the nonprofit sector.
If you have the opportunity I urge you to serve in all three sectors, for the benefit of them all. What you learn from business about efficiency and results could help a nonprofit or government agency to be more effective. What you learn from a nonprofit about passion for a mission could make business more responsible and public-spirited. What you learn in government about the interplay of policy and politics could make both companies and nonprofits better able to pursue their objectives.
Our nation’s founders had other professions that enriched their public service. Limit yourself to one sector and you will limit your career, your experience – and ultimately your influence.
Another thing I learned is to be open to possibility. Remember the old saying? If you want to make God laugh, then tell Him your plans. That’s especially true in the flat-world Information Age when change keeps getting faster. The idea of a career choice being a job choice or institutional affiliation is as obsolete as that first computer.
I never planned to work for a Wall Street investment firm. I certainly never planned to work full-time for six presidential candidates who lost. In each case, I planned on winning.
One final thing I learned: Know who you are, be who you are, work to be good at it, and be confident in yourself, tempered always with Minnesota humility. You could call it “creating a brand” – having a clear vision of what you have to offer, presented in a coherent way.
In my career I have interviewed a lot of job candidates, and I can tell you the ones who stand out – and get the jobs – are those who project a clear sense of themselves and their unique intellect, commitment, capability, energy, and flexibility.
So my three thoughts for today are these: First, with a long, 60-year career ahead of you, you will experience and bring about more change than any generation before you.
Second, with the change in our nation and the world, the public you serve will change dramatically, and become far more diverse and global. Don’t deny that reality – embrace it.
Third, as you set forth today, do not limit your choices – keep your eyes open and let your passion for public service be your guiding star. Know and nurture your “brand” – what makes you and your contributions so unique and invaluable.
I leave you today with a final thought from Hubert Humphrey: “It's not what they take away from you that counts,” he said, “it's what you do with what you have left. Never give up and never give in.”
To paraphrase that slightly, it’s not what the Humphrey school has given you. It is what you do with your education that counts. Never, ever give up the passion for public service that brought you here. And never give in when the cause is right. Congratulations and good luck.
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