Gov. McAuliffe to GMU Class of 2016: 'Never Be Afraid to Fail'

PHOTO: Gov. Terry McAuliffe delivers commencement address Saturday at George Mason University.

PHOTO BY RON AIRA

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FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA -- Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe delivered the commencement address Saturday to George Mason University's Class of 2016 at EagleBank Arena. The following are his remarks, courtesy of GMU:

"Good morning!

Thank you, President Cabrera, for that kind introduction.

Good afternoon, students, faculty, staff and family members.

And a special greeting to Senator Chuck Colgan. We miss you in the State Senate. Thank you for your four decades of service.

It is a privilege to be here today to celebrate this important moment in your lives.

This is a significant milestone, and you should be extremely proud of what you have accomplished.

No matter what path you take, it is because of YOUR hard work, YOUR dedication, and YOUR discipline that you are sitting here today.

I am also here to thank professors, parents, family and friends for the support you offered these graduates to help them reach this milestone in their lives.

In fact, graduates, will you join me in giving a round of applause to the people who got you here today?

Now Class of 2016, I promise to keep this short because I know there is nothing worse than a long commencement speech.

So start your watches. I’m going to be up and down in 10 minutes.

As I was preparing for today, I thought about the kinds of graduation gifts you probably are hoping to get.

Most of you, I suspect, are hoping for money.

Nothing wrong with that.

If you’re lucky, you’ll get a car, or at least a bicycle.

Now, I’m not going to buy you all cars.

But I can give you 3 gifts that I promise you will be even more useful to you in the years ahead.

My first gift is some advice.

I know. You still want the car.

But Bishop Desmond Tutu was right when he said, “one of the greatest gifts that we can give to another generation is our experience.”

The advice I give to my 5 children when we talk about their future is based on my experiences, and I will share it with you today.

My advice is: Think big, take chances, and never be afraid to fail.

Some of you may have heard this story before, but when I was 14 years old, I knew that in order to go to college I would have to pay for it myself.

I knew I had to start my own business, but I had no idea what kind until I was walking home one day and saw an older guy in front of his house sealing his driveway.

He was sweating and cursing and covered in tar.

I took one look at him and knew right away that I could do great business sealing driveways so guys like him wouldn’t have to do it.

I hurried home and typed up a flyer to pass out to neighbors, and by the end of the first day, I had six jobs.

The following year, I started sealing parking lots, and I had a truck and lots of employees.

So I started my first business. And it was a success.

Can you imagine? I was just a middle-class kid with an idea, but that idea helped change my life forever.

Little did I know that tarring driveways and parking lots would someday lead me to start more than 30 businesses, become the youngest chairman of a bank in U.S. history, and then, the Governor of Virginia.

The journey wasn’t always easy.

But I never stopped thinking big and taking chances, and I wasn’t afraid to fail.

Failure is a part of life.

It is going to happen.

The key is to learn from your failures, and keep pushing forward.

Some of you may not know that I ran for Governor in 2009.

I ran on big ideas like renewable energy and job creation.

I brought my case to the voters and told them, “If you don’t like my big ideas, don’t vote for me.”

And guess what?

They didn’t.

But I got up, dusted myself off and tried again.

Because of that journey, I am now the 72nd Governor of Virginia.

So when you go to sleep tonight, as your head hits the pillow, just remember this: Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Terry McAuliffe.

Isn’t this a great country?

I can honestly say that serving as the Governor of Virginia has been the highest honor of my life.

I know it can be difficult, but if you want to create meaningful change, you must think big, take chances and never be afraid to fail.

My second gift is the opportunity to continue your education.

You came to George Mason to get a world-class education, and I can tell you that you came to the right place.

Mason was included in the best research universities in the nation this year by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.

I couldn’t help but notice that an Ivy League school dropped out of the top list at the same time.

And U.S. News and World Report put Mason in the top 20 most innovative universities.

I can vouch for that.

I was here to announce the university’s partnership with Inova to create a major hub for personalized medicine, and I cut the ribbon for the Institute for Biomedical Innovation on the Science and Technology Campus.

Most people in this country and the world could never imagine having the educational opportunities you’ve had here at Mason.

Many of you are now preparing to pursue higher degrees. Others are getting ready to begin successful careers.

But I can promise that if you decide that today is the end of your education, you will be a dinosaur before you are 25 years old.

You’ll be a fax machine in a SnapChat world.

I have traveled the globe and met young talented entrepreneurs in China and India.

They take education very seriously, and they never stop learning.

If you want to compete with them, you must do the same.

That’s why I made education my top budget priority this year.

The new state budget includes $1 billion dollars in new funding for education at all levels, and we also passed a $2.2 billion dollar bond package that authorizes $1.35 billion dollars for 46 higher education construction and renovation projects.

That money is there for you, as well as your little brothers and sisters.

The budget includes $55.7 million new dollars for financial aid, as well as $20 million dollars to establish the nation’s first performance-based workforce training program here in Virginia.

That final piece will be tremendously important for many of you here today as you build new skills or perhaps look to hire employees for your business.

Virginia will need 1.5 million new workers over the next decade, many of them in emerging and fast-changing fields like cybersecurity, bioscience, advanced manufacturing and energy.

You may already have the skills today to fill one of those jobs, but I guarantee you’ll need to step up your game next year and the year after that.

So hang onto your backpacks. You may need them again very soon.

My third gift to you is a job -- lot of jobs, actually.

Since the start of my administration, the number of jobs in Virginia has grown by 154,600 to 3,921,200.

In fact, there are more jobs in Virginia today than at any other time in our Commonwealth’s history.

Now, if you don’t have a job yet in this market, you might want to rethink your career plans, and I’ll even point you in the right direction.

As I told you, I began my career at age 14 paving neighborhood driveways.

But if I were a young person today thinking about my future, I would be considering a career in cybersecurity.

In fact, when I gave the State of the Commonwealth address in January, I told all of the parents watching me on TV that they should tell their sons and daughters about the 17,000 cyber jobs open in Virginia right now, with a starting pay of $88,000.

I reminded them that in the movie, The Graduate, the key word then was “plastics.” Today, it’s “cyber.”

I got a few laughs with that line, but I’m not joking.

Cyberattacks are increasing every year.

In 2014, our state government computer systems detected an average of 100,000 attack attempts every single day.

Cyberattacks are initiated by highly skilled human beings, and we need people with equal or greater skills to defend us from criminal activity.

So if you are still weighing your career choices, think cyber.

But no matter what career you choose, I want you to know that you have the power, the ability and the education to lead the life you want to live.

There is no greater gift than being young and having your whole life ahead of you.

Do what I did as a 14 year old kid. Take charge, get behind the wheel and don’t look back.

Thank you again for inviting me to share this day with you."