 Stone Age. A billion days ago, no one walked on the surf on two feet. And this man manages 4.2 billion, 4 times, 4.2 times what I'm talking about. So I'll talk about his portfolio because it includes human capital management, safety, engineering, information technology, major acquisition, training and education, and the logistic system. He directed the highly successful response of the Mission Support Enterprise in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. And he orchestrated an ongoing service-wide campaign to eliminate sexual assaults in the ranks in a three-year period by transforming the culture and climate. If I went back to his previous positions from 2010 to 2012, he served as Commander Coast Guard Pacific Area where he oversaw all Coast Guard operational activities from pole to pole. You know, that's 12,430 miles as the crow flies from north to south pole. No, actually that's not right. That's another figure I got here. It's 10,999 miles from the north to the south pole. And he commanded a territory from Montana to Madagascar. If you go by the Atlantic, that's going to be 12,430 miles. If you go by the Pacific, it's going to be 14,130 miles. He commanded the Coast Guard's largest major cutter fleet, including heavy iceberg breakers. And he directed the early evacuation of Coast Guard families from Tokyo after the Japan Tsunami and Fukushima nuclear reaction incident. And from 2008 to 2010 as Commander of the 14th Coast Guard District in Honolulu, he commanded the Coast Guard's largest geographic district. There, there he was recognized with the 2010 U.S. Secret Service Director's Honors Award. And there, there he was the principal architect for a Central and Western Pacific Fishery Enforcement Campaign called the Fight for Fish that linked the health of fisheries with economic and social stability for the small nations of Oceania. Significantly from April to July 2004, while serving as the Coast Guard Chief Officer personnel in Washington, D.C., Vice Admiral Manson Brown, V-O-L-U-N-T-E-E-R-E-D volunteered for a temporary assignment to back that Iraq as a coalition provisional authority senior transportation advisor to Ambassador Bremer. His task was to restore transportation systems throughout our Iraq during a particular violent period of time. For his efforts, he was honored with a DOT gold medal for displaying exceptional strategic vision that revitalized the Maritime, Rail, and Air transport sectors of our Iraq's transportation systems. You can read the program and see that he is a registered professional civil engineer. You see where he got his BS degree and his two master degrees. And so I'll close with some of his preferences and tell you that he is an Abbot bike rider. And when I say Abbot, I mean Abbot. I ain't talking about 20 miles. I ain't talking about 30 miles. This man rides 100 miles at a time. Recently, he began remodeling his retirement home in Northern Virginia doing almost all of the work himself. His wife, Armenia, and their three sons would want you to join me in welcoming him as our commencement speaker today. So ladies and gentlemen, fall graduating class of 2013, our keynote speaker, Vice Admiral Manson K. Brown. Thank you and good morning. You know, Chancellor, that's quite the introduction. You all must think I don't sleep. I'll talk a little bit about sort of a life fulfilled. That's going to be the basic essence of my message today. So I say to Chancellor Bekdon, to our administrative and board officers, to the faculty and staff, to our esteemed graduates, to students, alumni, Viking family, and friends, I'm really honored with the invitation today. I want to thank you for your warm reception and your hospitality. I've been with you now for about the last 18 hours. I've learned a lot about this institution and the people that make it so special. You know, I'm proud of the very close relationship that the United States Coast Guard shares with Elizabeth City State University. You've educated some of the best and most talented professionals within my Coast Guard. People like Commanders Lamont, Baysmore, and Warren Judge. And we also share in the legacy of a man that attended Elizabeth City Normal School way back in the day, 1936. He went on to serve in the Coast Guard, retiring as a Chief Petty Officer, and went on after that to become a noted American author. Of course, I'm talking about the late Alex Haley. So today I want to lift up the achievements of all of our graduates. Some of you are members of Team Coast Guard. I want to specifically acknowledge Officer Candidate James Irvin and tell James, we look forward to embracing him in my officer corps when he graduates from Officer Candidate School next year. I also want to congratulate and commend our new second lieutenants who were commissioned yesterday with the United States Army and United States Army Reserve. Please stand and be recognized. I've got a number of folks wearing the cloth of the nation from the Coast Guard with me today. I want to commend our local Coast Guard commands for the positive impact that they make in this community with an active outreach and volunteer program. You know, the Coast Guard is one of the largest employers in town, and we want to continue to strive to be a good neighbor with East City. So ladies and gentlemen, I'm truly delighted to join you as we again celebrate the achievements of these distinguished graduates. These graduates have worked very, very hard. Their achievement, as was alluded to earlier, has been enabled by an incredible supporting cast. Their families and significant others provided crucial love, guidance, and support, and the Viking faculty and staff have labored mightily to help our graduates get to this special day. The significant contributions of this supporting cast make today all the more meaningful for these graduates. Graduates, indeed, today is a day for tribute and celebration, and I salute you all for your hard work, your persistence, and your teamwork. You've been appropriately stressed and tested by this institution, and I'm confident that you know that the discipline and rigor of the academic process leaves you stronger, smarter, and more resilient. Tomorrow provides a new day full of promise for each of you, so my challenge for you is this. What are you going to do to harness all of the promise your tomorrows may bring? I've learned from my own experience that all too often we sell ourselves short. We underestimate our capabilities or misjudge the opportunities that life presents to us. For many of us, a fear factor creeps into our psyche. Perhaps it's a fear failure, or a fear of hard work and commitment, or a fear of the unknown. Fear is often that hidden demon that holds us back from achieving all of the promise of our future. You know, I recall several episodes from my life where I had to overcome that demon, like volunteering to serve in Iraq. My wife thought I was crazy, or getting married and having a family, three beautiful sons, or choosing to leave home in inner city Washington, D.C., and go off to the Coast Guard Academy. And I'll just tell you, inner city kid, I couldn't swim. I was deathly afraid of the water, probably one of the biggest fears that I ever had to confront. But whenever I replay the mental tapes of my life, there's one specific incident that sticks out as a crucial turning point. One week before we graduated from the Coast Guard Academy, three of my classmates and I decided to commemorate our upcoming achievement by doing something truly bold. After some discussion and debate, we decided that we would jump out of a perfectly good plane and parachute back to the earth. On that Saturday, we drove up to a small airfield in Connecticut and paid a fee to enroll and start our pre-jump training. It was a fast-paced six-hour session. We learned everything we needed to know to make what was called a static line jump the following day. Now, a static line jump requires more than six hours training if you're going to pull the cord yourself. So, static line jump means that you're attached to a line that actually deploys the parachute after you've cleared the plane. Day one was called ground school. Ground school to me seemed pretty harmless because the training was actually on the ground. Day one was followed by a pretty sleepless night fraught with anticipation. On day two, we dutifully reported back to that airfield. The fact that we had paid about $80 which was a lot of money in 1978 provided motivation and there was a lot of peer pressure being traded. No one chickened out. Back at the airfield, we reviewed our lesson plan, we checked our shoot, and we received final instructions. We loaded on to a small Cezna plane of 192. Prior to take off, the jump instructor reminded us that we needed to precisely follow our training to avoid getting hit by the tail wing of the plane. Clearly, that wasn't a very comforting thought at that time, but we were already loaded on the plane too late to turn back now. As the plane climbed to 2,500 feet, the instructor pointed to me and said, you're the first to jump. Shame on me, I was the last one to get on the plane, I thought I'd be the last to jump. From that moment forward, time appeared to pass in slow motion as we approached the landing zone. The instructor motioned for me to climb out onto the strut of the plane. The wing strut. Everyone's eyes instantly turned to me. I gazed back at them, but it followed my military training and complied with the instruction. When I got out there, it seemed like I was riding on that strut for an eternity. My entire being was hyper-focused on holding on to that strut for dear life, but I must admit I had some lingering thoughts about what the instructor had said about that tail wing. In retrospect, riding that strut, that strut was the most thrilling portion of the whole episode, and that thrill made the next step that much easier. At long last, the instructor gave me the thumbs up, which was designed to jump. As I made my leap of faith, my training took over. I let go of the strut, I arched my back, I counted through the routine, one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one thousand, and in an instant I felt the tug of the shoot as it deployed. All at once the scene transformed from the chaotic and deafening sound of rushing wind to utter silence. And as I rode the wind and gravity back down towards terra firma, I was overcome by an incredible sense of calm and serenity. As I looked down, I watched the little white X on the airfield grass become a big white X. And using hand controls to direct the airflow through my shoot, I glided towards the landing zone. Now my landing wasn't very elegant, but it was good enough, and for me it was mission complete. My classmates had similar success with their jumps, and afterwards we were pretty giddy. We departed the airfield to celebrate our new found achievement. Now this was a silent victory for us, because we didn't let the academy administration know about our plan or the execution of that plan. You know upon reflection, that jump was probably the most full hearty thing I've ever done in my life, but it was also very liberating. It boosted my confidence in my own abilities to overcome fear. Now I've never had the inclination to jump again once was enough, but I would not rule out another jump to regain that complex thrill and serenity feeling that I had throughout that ordeal. Now my intent today is not to encourage any of you, particularly the young people with us, to jump out of a perfectly good plane. I share this story to illustrate an important point for our graduates. We find success at the intersection of preparation and opportunity. Now there's plenty of opportunity out there for those people with the right motivation and the right knowledge, skills, and abilities. It's the preparation part that requires most of our focus. Some might ask, prepare for what? And for much of my career I thought preparation was focused on my profession. That was a thought based on the notion of we are what we do. But I submit to you today that this concept of preparation has to be more broadly focused, not on our profession, but on our life. We are not just what we do. Indeed, as Nelson Mandela modeled for us, we are how we live. And I offer to you that in the United States of America we've been provided with a very inspirational description of what we should strive for in our lives. Recall those words penned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So there it is, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We call it the American Dream. And I know scores of individuals that have achieved great success by any measure. They have good jobs, they've accumulated wealth, they have professional fame, but they don't seem to be very happy. Recently a very talented and successful colleague of mine told me that she was looking for some inner peace. Reflect with me just for a moment. Inner peace. A state of security, freedom, and personal tranquility. Isn't that such a great place to get in our lives? Why is it so hard to get there? How many of the people we know actually achieve a sense of inner peace? How many are living in opposite condition? Inner conflict driven by a sense of insecurity and trapment or personal turmoil. You know as I pondered these questions I do what many of you do. I googled famous people who have fallen from grace. Clearly there's great interest in this subject because I got several hundred thousand hits. I found lists with names that we are all familiar with. And one particular website starts with their list with the name of cyclist Lance Armstrong. And as the chancellor mentioned, I'm a cyclist. So you can imagine how crushed I was by his downfall. Clearly many on those lists had some imbalance in their well-being. So I concluded that the way to achieve inner peace is to focus on balancing all of the inputs to our personal well-being. Miriam Webster defines well-being as a state of being happy, healthy, and prosperous. Sounds pretty close to that description of our American dream. Now for me there are five dimensions that are crucial to our well-being. Physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social. The more balance you achieve with all of these dimensions, the more likely you are to enhance your well-being and thereby your ability to achieve ultimate success. Achieving balance with our well-being requires sustained focus and it takes a lot of work. There are so many stressors to our well-being. Our DNA can impact our physical, our mental, and our emotional state. Our lifestyle and habits affect all five dimensions. You throw in things like life experiences, beliefs, personality traits, personal and professional tragedies. And one can quickly conclude that we don't have total control over our well-being. Graduates, as you prepare to enter the next phase of your journey, you should believe that you have enough control over your own well-being to make a positive difference. And if you take control, you can strengthen your well-being over time and build some resilience against those shocks that we all experience in our lives. So how do we take control? First, we must take care of ourselves physically to meet the demands of a fast-paced lifestyle. As you know, fitness promotes all-around health, even with somebody like me with bad DNA. Taking care of our bodies promotes increased stamina. Make your medical health a priority, too. And some of y'all know what I'm talking about. Doctors are there to help you. And sometimes, as I found out in 2003, they can actually save your life. Second, we must also work on our mental well-being. Intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. In terms of your intelligence quotient or your ITU, let me just say it plain. You got what you got. But like our bodies, we can train our minds to operate with peak efficiency. Now, this gets harder as you get older, but I'm finding, as I get closer to 60, that experience is a suitable substitute for diminishing mental acuity. Through my journey, I've developed almost a constantly accelerating knowledge thirst for knowledge. And I'll gotta tell you, I wasn't a very great student back in the day. I wasn't always that ambitious about continuous learning. The habit came from observing individuals that I admire, and it came from hard work and dedication. Make continuous learning a passion of yours, something to be enjoyed. Your Viking motto or philosophy really gets to the heart of this. To learn is to live. Third, emotion is a conscious mental reaction like anger or fear that is subjectively experienced to strong feeling and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body. Now, in my view, emotional well-being is perhaps the most important dimension. Being emotionally strong enables us to sustain focus on the other dimensions without major distraction. The opposite is also true. If our emotions are consumed by the drama of life, then emotional instability will not likely negatively impact our physical, mental, and social well-being. Now, where the experts measure intelligence using IQ, they measure emotional intelligence using something called an emotional quotient. And emotional intelligence refers to the ability to perceive, to control and evaluate emotions. People with higher EQs typically outperform people with high IQs, and that's why the smartest people don't always rise to the top. From a leadership perspective, I consider emotional intelligence more valuable than mental intelligence. Fourth is the spiritual dimension, and that really speaks to an animating or vital principle held to give life to physical organizations. Many of us perceive the spiritual dimension as God or the creator or simply a life force. We must believe in something greater than ourselves to achieve balance with our well-being. The spiritual dimension gives our lives meaning. It helps us define our purpose, and meaning and purpose are the fuels for motivation and commitment. And the last dimension is social, and this one is fairly obvious, and it's been alluded to before. For us to thrive as human beings, we need the love, encouragement, and support of others, our family, our loved ones, our friends, our coworkers. If we're properly connected to that support, then we are socially healthy. And being socially healthy can make the difference between having a job or being engaged in a profession. It can also make the difference between our own perceptions of whether or not we're thriving or surviving. Making and sustaining connections with others takes a lot of time, and it takes a lot of commitment. And I challenge you to maintain your connections with this beautiful institution. We all lead busy lives, and at the end of the day, many of us feel tired or burned out. Often we don't have the energy left to devote to our families, our friends, or our social networks. So I challenge you to stay in touch with those that love and support you. That includes your family, friends, your favorite professors, former bosses. I try to reach out to every member of my professional network once a year just to keep that connection warm. And as the Chancellor said, I lead an organization of about 17,000 professionals, and I oversee countless human interactions with that team. The vast majority of the leadership challenges that I deal with have to do with imbalances in one or more dimensions of your well-being. It's easier to help others with these imbalances when you yourself are balanced. So graduates, today you have completed ground school. You're prepared, and you're ready for your jump, your leap of faith. I challenge you to make this leap of faith into the rest of your life. Fully harness all the purpose of your tomorrows. Put away your fears. Be bold. Be balanced. Be well. Be you. I bid you all the best of life, liberty, and a pursuit of happiness. Congratulations again. Thank you. God bless you all. Happy holidays. Viking pride. Viking pride. Viking pride. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Potent, powerful, persuasive presentation on the intersection of preparation and opportunity. You remember his words. Don't sell yourself short. Develop a healthy love of learning. He reminds us what Plutarch the Greek biographer said, that the mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled. He told you to seek inter-peace by focusing on our well-being, our spiritual, our social, our emotional, our mental, and our physical well-being. He told us to be stronger and smarter and more resilient. And he told us to overcome our fears, to be bold, to make leaps of faith. Well, please don't jump out of a good plane without a static line. Vice Admiral Brown, thank you again, and we actually have a presentation for you.