 So, this is a very special moment for our university, our larger community of learning, the state of Vermont, and our nation, and we're very grateful for all of you who have chosen to stay through the course of the day to enjoy this moment. We have a few folks that will come up and speak, but I want to just talk for a second about how we came to this point. There are people in this room that have led Norwich University, whether through strategic direction or through partnership, to be an international leader in cyber education and its related fields. I'm looking over to my left to your right, I'm looking at President Emeritus Richard Schneider and the things he did for this university, programmatically, strategically, and just through sheer force of personality charm, you know, he did incredible things for this school. We would not be in the building like this, we wouldn't have programs we had if not for Rich. So, sure, thank you again for being here today. And sitting near Rich is our greatest living alumni, Gordon Sullivan, retired general and former chief of staff of the United States Army. General Sullivan was the chairman of the Board of Trustees and led in partnership with Rich, our university, to reach the point that we are the institution that we are today. And if not for General Sullivan, we would not be in a position we are as an institution, as a brand, and as such a critical piece of the national security system and the global community of learning. So, General Sullivan, sir, thank you very much for being here with us also. I'm looking in a room and I can thank many more people and acknowledge many more people that led us to this point, our incredible faculty and staff. There are so many faculty members, current and former, that also led our academic programs and did incredible things for our university and our community, and most importantly, our students, that are our highly successful alumni across all fields, but today we celebrate our alumni working in the cyber, computer science, information security fields, and the incredible work they're doing that furthers the Norwich brand certainly, but also in service to their communities, our state, and our nation. I'm looking at some of our trustees and there's one I'd like to acknowledge, especially because he's a cyber expert and he's our newest member of our Board of Trustees, and then there's Frank Leja, who is sitting here in the second to front row. So what he's bringing to our community as a cyber expert, as a refined gentleman, and as a great thinker, is going to be transformational for us moving forward, but every single person I named and those others in the room, including Phil Seussman, our director and president of Nuwari and vice president for strategic partnerships, everyone that has had us hand in bringing Norwich to this point will say very clearly and unequivocally that we would not be here without Senator Patrick Lee. We would not have been able to do the things that we have done and expanded our programs and to develop our brand to the level it is without this incredible partnership. So we're going to have a very special dedication here in one moment, but before we do that, we have a special video presentation for Senator Leahy that we'd like to play right now. Please roll it. I remember the very first time that I actually met the senator in person. I had an informal discussion and Senator Leahy came over to me and said that he had grown up in Montpelier, Vermont, and he had rode his bicycle from Montpelier to Norwich as a kid and had ridden around campus. And as he's talking about this at that moment in time, there was imagery. I could see the Vermont connection there. It was really, you know, I got that connection of the unique environment that we both grew up in, albeit I was a couple of years later. The love of Vermont, that was his touchstone from whence he went out and did all kinds of wonderful things for the whole country and for the world. We grew up half a block down from the state house. At a point, my mother rented rooms to legislators. My father bid on a lot of printing jobs for the state, so always topics of conversation at the supper table was state doings and political doings. The conversations we would have, the discussions about state and local national politics, I believe very much influenced Pat to run himself for political office. My campaign is a campaign to preserve the Vermont we cherish and we want to keep. And to prepare for the Vermont we want to move forward into the next century. This election will speak of the future of Vermont and the direction of America that together we shape a better century and a better world for ourselves and our children because it will be our century and it will be the best of centuries. The U.S. Senate was that place that would pull together his enormous talents and his drive to really make a difference. We're becoming more and more of a high-tech state, so certainly legislation that involves high-tech computers, the ability to compete worldwide, that's important. He's always been a bit of a technology guy, so he could make the connections between how technology was evolving and how we need to anticipate where it was going to go and not only the opportunities it creates for economic development, but also issues around security. And he saw the importance of cybersecurity as a military national security issue. Norwich had done a good job building the beach at on those issues. He saw that and he supported that and he tried to resource that. Senator Leahy sponsored the National Center for the Study of Counterterrorism and Cybercrime at Norwich University in the 2002 Justice Reauthorization Act. And we got funding that first year in a program element line for special operations. Our first real initiative was to do some type of educational program which ended up being decide. And Senator Leahy, the cyber senator, got it and he understood it. He said, this is a really important program because it's going to build resiliency into the elements of our national power and critical infrastructure. So as a former Army officer and the former commander of the Cyber National Mission Force, I realized that the greatest strength our nation has and the critical element of defending our critical infrastructure are people. So the Defense Cyber Institutes in Norwich, they feel a critical need in providing the right kind of education and training that our cybersecurity workforce needs. And with the support of leaders like Senator Leahy, these institutions have been able to stand up and during training programs to provide the hands-on technical training that our leaders need. They provide a great foundation of leadership and practical experience. And because of the diverse course loads that these students take, they also provide the critical thinking skills that are current and future cyber workforce is going to need to be able to compete in the future. I think what we really have to just take a moment and reflect is to really appreciate and thank Senator Leahy for his vision. For the trust that he's put in Norwich University to lead the way, not only are we leading the way in STEM, AI, and now quantum computing, but we're developing the entire student. We're giving them the critical thinking skills to build the next generation and continue it to be leaders in cybersecurity. I chose Norwich because of the computer security program, as well as the experiences and opportunities that would come with gaining an education from here, such as having an internship here on campus where I got to study how network security works for the state and understand how to identify threats and help if there's a problem and basically helping to keep the state of Vermont safer that way. Senator Leahy has been a very strong friend to Norwich University and to education in the state as a whole and also very supportive of first what Vermont needs, of course, but also how the Guard could help supply what Vermont needs. The Senator's steadfast support for this concept turned into a building, turned into an eternal concept because it's going to keep evolving and it's going to keep changing into what our country grows to need. He got it right away that we needed a flexible space that was going to be able to educate everyone, but we didn't know even what we were going to educate in because the technology was changing so quickly. That led to this building built in 2001 and without his support, this building would have never happened and we wouldn't have been able to deliver the great academic programs to civilian students, to cadets, to adults in the master's program and then the degree completion program for the cyber professional wannabes and for the United States military enlisted personnel. Man, what a powerhouse and we have been roaring ever since, but without that building, we wouldn't have had the space, the flexibility or the equipment and Senator Leahy made that happen. Senator Leahy has been a great senator, great congressional leader and the nations are going to miss him. I am personally grateful for the friendship that you've extended to me over these years to be able to build these programs and to support Norwich University. Thank you, Senator Leahy, well done. You can retire knowing that you have left Vermont in the country in better shape. So Senator Leahy, in my service, the United States Coast Guard, we would say, Senator Leahy, fair wins in following seas. We have left America, Vermont and Norwich in a great position of strength and innovation so that President Anarumo can build on that capacity and generate the next group of leaders to protect America. Hello, I am President Mark Anarumo at Norwich University and on behalf of the entire Norwich community, I want to thank Senator Patrick Leahy for his long support and partnership with Norwich. As we all know, Senator Leahy is one of the first to understand cyber as a domain and as an area of great threat to our nation and the world. And through the partnerships that he provided and supported to Norwich, we have been able to create some of the great leaders in the field, and not just for cyber, but the areas that are related to cyber that are now emerging in the 21st century, like data analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and of course, quantum computing. These are all areas in which Norwich University will lead because of the great support of Senator Leahy. So on behalf of our international community that is Norwich and on behalf of our wonderful community here in the state of Vermont, please accept my sincere gratitude for our long and successful partnership. Norwich together and Norwich forever. So I'm about to make a very special announcement after which I'm gonna ask Representative Welch to come up and make a comment. But before I do so, we are proud to welcome the person for whom today is named and who we have the symposium honored for, Senator Leahy. Thank you for joining us, sir, very much. I've been looking forward so much to being there. And I'm sorry that this recent fracture I got, I'll be walking soon and I will be up to Norwich Field to see you. But there's one good thing about not being there. We ever had something where virtual technology was fitting at this time. It's allowing us to come together. I can visit the wonderful campus of Norwich from hundreds of miles away. Technology brings us together. And it's accurate to say as many have that technology creates a huge number of new threats, but technology allows us to stave off those threats and to enjoy the benefits. And of course, the most important thing that technology could do is the relationship that will create between people, not just in your campus, but all over the world. The response of place where people connected is not only important to life, but it's a very fabricated life. When Marcel and I are home, we might have dinner on Church Street and brunch on our visit to the gas station in Montpellier, our old friends and Vermonters I've known for decades as well as people I'm just being feel comfortable and coming up and just sharing their thoughts and we find how connected we are. They talk about Kevin Bacon and three degrees of separation in Vermont. There's never more than three degrees of separation. Everybody's connected to everybody. So it's natural for me to use cyberspace as a continuation of connection. I created one of the first websites in the Senate. I've done hundreds of video chats with Vermont schoolchildren and encouraged them to learn about our state and our country. And that's why I've ensured among the billions of dollars in the federal budget, it's appropriated for cyberspace programs that the executive agencies pay attention to the special perspective we in Vermont bring. And I must say that while they may listen to me as chairman of the committee, they listen even more when they hear the wonderful things you're doing, you make the case. And because the real connectivity is in cyberspace, the people linking into them, the people coding the software, the people fabricating their hardware, any cybersecurity specialist will tell you the weakest link in security is the humans who usually create the programs. But humans could be the most powerful part of our network. And so much of my work has been about how we improve the way human connections can strengthen the technological ones. I created the Trusted Foundry program years ago in support of this evolution. So people telling them can have confidence in their chips and can fight cyber attacks. I provided funds to establish the Leahy Center for Digital Investigations at Champlain College. So there'd be a place where the work of protecting and serving people in the real world is made easier by the online. When I ensured the National Guard had a cyber unit which helped the people, not only the nation, but our state and cyber disaster. So it's a web of human connections. But then I look at what you've done in Norwich. My gosh, everything, everything comes together. And I, this year I'm looking forward so much to being here because I think of all the years we worked together. And I think of the times walking around the campus just talking about things, maybe we could do this, maybe we could do that, well, let's try. And I never found anything in Norwich that we can do it. I mean, we talked about some of the most impossible things, we can do it and you have. And I can't tell you how proud I am. And Marcel and I have talked about this, the school bearer by name because we recognize that technology is connecting people. You're gonna train your cadets and civilian students, not only how to protect cyber space, but how to interpret, use the complicated information from new frontiers like cyber training. But because you are in Norwich, because you are in Norwich, you're gonna teach them ethics and the importance of a human-centric perspective. That's gonna make them better people, better students, better cadets, but it's gonna help America at a time we need it. You show them the Norwich way, the Vermont way, they'll learn the strength of the connection between people. They'll go back to the earliest days of Vermont. We've always had to rely on each other, but that's made us strong and resilient. Everyone here knows we continue the tradition into the digital age. We've used technology to create new bars between us. It has been my honor to sport and strengthen that during my Senate career, and I must tell you, even after I leave the Senate in January, you'll see me roaming around the campus. I know you've always had an open door for both myself and myself. We'll be there because you are in Norwich, because I am proud of you, and I can't tell you how much this day means to me. Thank you all very, very much. So thank you very much, Senator Lay, for your words. One of the beautiful things about living and working in Vermont, especially at a university like Norwich, is how deeply personal it is. And I really want to thank Senator Lay, he's a professional staff who are sitting here today. They asked me not to because they want to be anonymous. I won't call him out by name, but they hosted us, and Senator Lay, he hosted us in his chambers and throughout the building. And what was supposed to be a 30 minute office call turned into about an hour and a half of really deeply personal and beautiful time. And then his handlers kept coming in and saying, Senator, you have other senators waiting for you, you're late. And he said, tell them I'm with the president of Norwich University and they're gonna have to wait longer. And I asked him, and I said, well that case, please have to know my name is Rich Snyder, Norwich Forever. So in that note, I'm about to make the formal announcement, and then I'll ask Representative Welch to please come and join me on the stage. But ladies and gentlemen, at this moment, you're gonna hear the formal proclamation from our chairman of our Board of Trustees, but it is my absolute honor and pleasure to announce the naming of the Senator Patrick Leahy, School of Cybersecurity and Advanced Computing. Correct? Congratulations, sir. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce Representative Peter Welch to make some comments. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Patrick, I love that video. I love seeing your mom and dad. I remember when I first went to Montpelier and your sister Mary in the bicycle, that was good, but they left something out. You kind of messed up on this. You left out Senator Leahy as a young boy on his tricycle riding around the governor's office in the state house. That's true story. And I love the comments that are so true about Patrick just being so grounded in Vermont and loving it so much. And one of his, Chuck Ross, his former chief of staff would tell stories about riding around the state with Patrick and he'd be talking to somebody at the gas station or he'd be talking to a neighbor and then the next call might be to the president, right? Or the president's calling Patrick and they'd be riding around and suddenly Patrick had to tell the president, you know, I've got a call coming in. It's from Rick Snyder, let's say. But a Vermonter like took precedence and that grounding in Vermont and caring about it is what has totally anchored this man's career of 48 extraordinary years of service to the people of Vermont and to the people of this country in the United States Senate. That is so extraordinary. Patrick, we are so, so indebted to you for every single day where you acted on our behalf always with integrity, always with ethics and I want to lead a round of applause. And I want to just say a couple of things too because how does this happen, all right? That Norwich University is now a preeminent location for teaching and learning about cybersecurity. Well, number one is the vision, as somebody mentioned. Patrick had a vision and he was committed to it and he knew that he had to act day in and day out to try to achieve this. He saw over the horizon where cybersecurity is fundamentally what security is now about and is absolutely vital to the national interest and it was absolutely vital that we have a way in which young people are going to be able to help our country protect its secrets and protect its economy. Number two, with this position in the Senate as the chair of the Appropriations Committee and as a long-serving member on the Appropriations Committee what Patrick understands is it's not just money, that is really, really important. You've got a resource, but it's a sustained commitment. It's not a one-and-done kind of deal. It's like we've got to create an institution that has the capacity to deliver, to upgrade, to recruit students, to recruit faculty, to do all of those things that require institutional foundations that then allow students with motivation and energy and intelligence to be able to get the training and go forth and help us and you see that commitment of sustained support for an objective through an institution in what he did here and it was mentioned. 2009, a $15 million contract. 2013, $9.9 million homeland security contract. 2018, $7.3 million in three different grants and of course in 2021 Norwich University receives $19.5 million grant to lead the Defense Department Cyber Institute program and that's a sustained commitment by a leader who understands the importance of institutions to our society so that we can accomplish what our society needs. But the last part, and this is the secret sauce, he knows how to operate in the Senate. That is not easy. That is not easy. It's true. Through all of the noise of politics, when we're reading and mystified and what's going on here and there and who's up and who's down and all of the distractions, there's this steady force that's just moving forward just beneath the noise and it's Patrick talking to the center, talking to that center keeping things moving. It's not a straight line getting from here to there to accomplish what he's done but he knows when to whisper here, when to whisper there, when to pull back, when to push forward. That is like a skill. And my goodness, it's invisible to us here because we see fortunately the output but I remember being on a trip. Senator Leahy invited me on a trip with him and Senator Shelby who's the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee at that time I think and I saw him in action because we're on this trip, Patrick and Marcel, of course and it's all together most of the time but every once in a while I would be looking for Patrick and I would see him in the back of the plane or in the back of the room where we were meeting talking to Senator Shelby. Now if I had Patrick's acting skills I could mimic the southern accent of Senator Shelby but I won't try but you know somehow in some way this conservative senator from Alabama and this wonderful senator from Vermont found ways to do things that needed to be done in that case for both of their states. So the ability to actually do the work that's required to have the relationships that you have to sustain over time to have the trust of your colleagues where when you are asking for their support that is going to benefit in this case Norwich University that's trust that's earned day in and day out by the integrity that Patrick has brought to his work every single day and what I've always you know admired about Patrick is the advice he's given to me when I was serving in Congress your word is your bond your word is your bond and Patrick you know we're here in Norwich today we're so proud of what Norwich has done but we're really here just to acknowledge that none of this would have been possible without your dedication, your integrity and your extraordinary political skill so Patrick Leahy I just want to express the gratitude that all of us here at Norwich but all citizens of Vermont have to you and Marcel for the dedication you've given to us and to our country thank you. At this point I would like to invite the chairman of the Norwich University Board of Trustees Mr. Allen DeForest to the podium. Allen? I'd like to start by recognizing two very special people President Mark Anarumo and President Emeritus Snyder and without your leadership we would not be here today thank you for that leadership I'm so happy to recognize Senator Leahy in this formal manner his support sir your support will now live on for generations in 1998 the Norwich University Board of Trustees led by General Gordon Sullivan who's with us today gave the mandate that Norwich University become a leader in cyber education research and training it was the trustees who had the vision to say this is important for Norwich University this is important for the state of Vermont and this is important for the nation Senator Leahy has been a steadfast partner in supporting the growth of this signature program at Norwich University therefore it is my great pleasure as chairman of the Norwich University Board of Trustees and by unanimous approval by those Board of Trustees that we dedicate the Senator Patrick Leahy School of Cyber Security and advance computing and with the Leahy family please join us on stage for the unveiling also Mark is here Dean Temkin Michael Baddick and Frank Leija would you also come up and join us? So now I would like to invite Phil Seussman up to make some close remarks thanks Phil What a wonderful day Thank you Senator Leahy for all that you've done for Norwich University and really giving us a chance to be a national leader in cyber security and critical infrastructure protection Fabulous If I may just to interrupt a moment I want to tell you all part of the view of this session in Norwich I feel fortunate as a kid from Montpeyre that I could be in a position and do this but as Marcel has heard me say so many times I fought for this money because I believed in Norwich I knew it wouldn't be wasted I knew Norwich would make the investment worthwhile I knew that you would do the things needed to help protect our country and this is something that protects our country greatly and Phil you and I and the presidents of this and it means so much to me that you're there I can't tell you how touched I am by this I would have done this whether my name was on there or not because you're the ones doing the work I believe in Norwich I believe in all of you and I just say thank you very much and thank you to Peter Welch for the wonderful things he just said thank you sir and we're ready when you get on your bicycle again to host you on campus sir I will I'm walking slowly but I am walking and I will be on the bike but I'm going to be walking with you around the Norwich campus sometime soon thank you that sounds fabulous