 Thank you very much. Thank you. Please. Well, I hope you haven't said everything. Oh. All right. Well, Secretary Baldritch and ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon and welcome to the White House. You know, one of the last times that this grand old mansion played host to an event that concerning technology was back in 76. 1876. President Rutherford B. Hayes was shown a recently invented device. That's an amazing invention, he said. But who would ever want to use one of them? He was talking about a telephone. I thought at the time that he might be mistaken. But in those days, most Americans were tied to the land and the most familiar means of transportation were the sailing ship and the horse. Then advances like the telephone and the electric light, the internal combustion engine transformed our nation, enabling us to achieve the highest standard of living in the world, to lead longer, richer, and fuller lives, and to share our bounty with millions beyond our borders. Today we see all around us the beginnings of a second transformation, a quantum technological leap that's making possible still greater prosperity and individual fulfillment than we've ever known. This new technology is affecting every aspect of our lives. In manufacturing, lightweight and inexpensive materials like fiber composites and ceramics are taking the place of costly metals. In transportation, cars and airplanes are being equipped with inexpensive microchips that keep track of maintenance needs and enable engines to run better on less fuel. In the home, computers are putting art, literature, and vast sums of information at families' fingertips. Perhaps the most exciting advances are taking place in medicine. The diagnostic process, for example, has been made faster, safer, and more accurate by the advent of technologies like cat-scanning and the use of sound waves. Biotechnology is enabling us to produce human growth hormones more easily and inexpensively. A God send to children whose growth might otherwise be impaired. Research in advancing against cancer and new drugs are combating high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease. Countless medical breakthroughs have meant that for the past decade, the life expectancy of Americans has gone up. As technology goes on providing new goods, services, and techniques of production, our entire economy is expanding, and worker productivity is up. At one semiconductor plant in Pennsylvania, 1957, workers produced five transistors for a day for $7.50 a piece. And they now produce over a million for less than a penny a piece. Perhaps the best news of all concerns new job formation. Employment in the computer industry has skyrocketed. Computers and robotics are also bringing new efficiency to our older industries, helping them modernize their plants and compete better. And today, American cars are once again as advanced as those built anywhere on Earth. Economic growth is our most powerful tool for reducing poverty and fostering vigor and self-esteem among the millions in America's workforce. I expect today's burgeoning technology to work hand in hand with the incentives in our tax reform plan to keep our economy growing and creating ever wider opportunities for all Americans. Our administration has made a firm commitment to technological process, progress, both of them are probably true, but one we view as nothing less than a commitment to human creativity and imagination. While we're cutting back wherever possible unnecessary government spending, we're continuing our strong commitment to basic research and development. We have cut personal income tax rates, we plan to cut them again. This could spur savings and higher savings could in turn boost the capital formation so important in funding new high technology ventures. And we've rolled back needless government regulations to help provide the freedom needed by those at the frontiers of technology to experiment with new hypotheses and techniques. In space, we're opening the way to private enterprise. The space shuttle program is already working closely with the private industry and in 1985, NASA is scheduled to deploy eight commercial communication satellites. Space technology will continue to grow even more rapidly as we pursue our plans to launch a permanently manned space station and to do so within a decade. In defense, we're putting technology at the service of a decades old dream, the elimination of nuclear weapons. Our strategic defense initiative represents perhaps the most dramatic and wide reaching research effort to explore the means for making nuclear weapons obsolete. Let me make one thing plain. The strategic defense initiative is not a bargaining chip. It's an historic effort on behalf of our national defense and peace throughout the world and we intend to see it through. The story of American technology is long and proud. It might be said to have begun with a blacksmith at his bellows hammering out fine tools and the Yankee craftsmen using simple wood planes, saws and mallets to fashion the fastest sailing ships on the ocean and then came the railroad men driving spikes across our country. And today, the story continues with the workers who built the computer in a child's room. The engineers who designed the communication satellite that silently rotates with the earth, shining in the sunlight against the blackness of space and the men and women of skill and determination who helped to put American footprints on the moon. In a few moments, 14 Americans will become the first recipients of the National Technology Awards and you are heroes, each one of you. You're just as surely as were Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. You sing the songs of a people using their hands and minds in freedom, the songs of Americans at work making their lives even more full. And it's only fitting that our nation should pay you honor and on behalf of the American people, I congratulate you. And thank you and God bless you and Mac, you take good care of me. Thank you, Mr. President. The first winner is Joseph F. Sutter, Boeing Commercial Airplane Company for his technical and managerial contributions to the development and introduction of generations of jet-powered commercial aircraft which have made the United States the predominant supplier of passenger transport aircraft, Mr. Sutter. Bob O. Evans, Frederick P. Brooks Jr. and Eric Block, formerly with IBM Corporation, for their contributions to the development of the hardware, architecture and systems engineering associated with the IBM System 360, a computer system and the technologies which revolutionized the data processing industry and which helped make the United States dominant in computer technology for many years. Mr. Evans, Brooks and Block, please. John E. Puckett and Harold A. Rosen, Hughes Aircraft Company, for their technological contributions and leadership in the initiation and development of geostationary communication satellites, significantly improving worldwide communications and giving the United States international preeminence in the construction of commercial satellites, Mr. Puckett and Mr. Rosen. Marvin M. Johnson, Phillips Petroleum Company for his discovery and development of metals-passivating agents for catalytic cracking catalysts which have become economically effective methods permitting refineries to process crude oils with higher metal contents, particularly heavy crude oil types and have contributed to the United States competitiveness in this technological area, Mr. Johnson. John T. Parsons and Frank L. Stuhlen, John T. Parsons Company for their development and successful demonstration of the numerically controlled machine tool for the production of three-dimensional shapes which has been essential for the production of commercial airliners and which is seminal for the growth of the robotics, CAD-CAM, and automated manufacturing industries. Mr. Parsons and Mr. Stuhlen. And next we have a couple of old timers, Steven P. Jobs and Steven G. Wozniak, Apple Computer Incorporated for their vision and foresight in the development and introduction of the personal computer which has sparked the birth of a new industry extending the power of the computer to individual users, Mr. Jobs and Mr. Wozniak. Ralph Landau, formerly with Halcon SD Group Incorporated for his technical leadership and entrepreneurial roles in the development of commercially successful petrochemical processes which have been licensed or jointly developed and have helped maintain U.S. leadership in petrochemical processing, Mr. Landau. AT&T Bell Telephone Labs Incorporated, INM Ross, president for decade long contributions to modern communication systems resulting in helping to create the finest telecommunication systems in the world and averaging about a patent a day since 1925. Mr. William Baker, former president and chairman of the board of AT&T is here today in the audience and shares this honor. Mr. Ross, well, the president has congratulated each of you. I certainly do the same, gentlemen, and that concludes our presentation awards today. I hope there'll be many more. Thank you very much for coming. Congratulations.