BBA Commencement Address
Peter R. Coneway

Dean Gau, faculty, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, family members, and, most important of all, graduates of the Class of 2005, I’m delighted that you asked me to be part of this special day in your lives.

Last spring, when the comedian Jon Stewart was the commencement speaker at his alma mater, William and Mary, he said,

“As a person, I am honored . . . as an alumnus, I have to say, I believe we can do better.” I feel a little bit the same way . . . but I’m truly honored to be here.

One of your great joys in the years ahead . . . when you have reunions and get together with other UT alumni . . . will be to share memories of the “old college days” including worst roommate stories. But I don’t believe you could possibly beat mine. One of my roommates here at UT had a friend, who for some reason, was temporarily living in our apartment . . . You know how those things go.

This temporary buddy was a little crazy and, in fact, had a Thompson submachine gun . . . which I suppose would have raised a red flag for most of us, but I was in a fraternity and crazy things seemed to be the norm. I soon learned he kept the Thompson fully loaded . . . because one night when I was sound asleep . . . probably in Budweiserland . . a cat somehow got into the apartment . . . startled this temporary roommate . . . who opened fire. In the melee that followed, he shot the tail off the cat, riddled the walls with bullets, blew out three windows and scared the hell out of me.

He later became a Baptist minister.

You’re probably wondering how this story relates to your commencement.

Well, it doesn’t. I just wanted to give you graduates a taste of what your reunions are going to be like. But, back to the future, in Jon Stewart’s commencement address last year, he raised the question, “What piece of wisdom can I impart to you about my journey that will somehow ease your transition from college . . . back to your parents’ basement?”

Fortunately, I have a great deal more faith in what a degree from UT will mean to your lives. In fact, I know from experience what it can mean.

This is a place that lifts people up. I hope you feel that you have been lifted up.

I grew up down in Harlingen, Texas . . . I knew this university was my future. I wanted to come here more than anywhere else in the world. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I hadn’t gotten in.

The University of Texas was a beacon to me. I could see it from all the way down there in Harlingen.

No matter where you are from, I am sure you saw it, too.

The light that is the University of Texas drew you here.

And no matter where your life takes you, I hope you will continue to see that beacon.

If you look up the word “beacon” in the dictionary, it means a signal, a guide, a point of reference.

That is what this university should remain as you go forward.

So what is the most important thing that your education at the McCombs School of Business has added to your life?

It is not whether you can articulate Marx’s theory of dialectical materialism. Instead, in the words of one observer, education is the knowledge not just of facts but also of values.

I hope the idea of values has been elevated in your university experience at the business school. Values are what an education has always sought to further . . . values like a commitment to the pursuit of truth and the elevation of the human experience through the life of the mind.

The values I am talking about are not reserved just for those who are receiving degrees in philosophy. They are also relevant to those receiving business degrees.

By the way, you won’t see these values on that so-called business reality show “The Apprentice.” I would not use Donald Trump as my role model if I were you . . . especially when it comes to his hair.

As all commencement speakers will tell you, the world truly is wide-open to you. That is a platitude, yes, but also a truth. What is not discussed as much is that you are going to face temptations that will test your values.

I’ve seen the pressures of business change the smartest people. I have seen ambition turn into greed . . . and confidence turn into arrogance.

Let me explain how it happens, because it sneaks up on you.

In the spring of 1970, I had my first important client dinner as a new associate at Goldman Sachs. Our firm had not done any business with this particular hedge fund . . . but after several months of unproductive calls, I finally received my first order. So, as a thank-you, I invited the head trader and his wife to join my wife, Lynn, and me at Brennan’s Restaurant in Houston. In the course of a pleasant evening, I learned of the fund’s plan to accumulate a large, new securities position, and I was encouraged that Goldman might get the nod to handle the trade.

At the end of the dinner, after coffee, I asked my client if there was anything else he would like. He said, “Yes, I would like some cigarettes.” After I requested that the waiter bring a pack of cigarettes, my client, attempting to set a precedent for our future relationship, said in a condescending and belittling voice,

“Not a pack, I want a carton.” Although I was shocked, it happened so fast that it took a few minutes before I realized that I had been used. I felt cheapened and dirty.

On the way home, Lynn said she couldn’t believe I allowed him to do what he did, and she rightly chastised me for not protecting my honor and values.

I have thought about the lesson of that night on numerous occasions over my career.

I’ll share another incident I am not particularly proud of that taught me a lesson. In December of 1978, at the age of 34, I became one of 66 partners at Goldman. As was tradition, a black tie dinner, that year at Windows of the World atop the World Trade Center, was held to celebrate the new partners’ induction.

A fellow new partner and I, one of my best friends to this day, rented a limousine to take our spouses and us to the dinner. We arrived that crisp winter evening dressed to kill. We felt like masters of the universe.

As we pulled up to the building, we impatiently, if not somewhat arrogantly, waited for the people in the yellow cab ahead of us to pay their fare and vacate our limo’s rightful spot in front of the entrance.

Out of the cab stepped John Whitehead and John Weinberg, the firm’s two co-senior partners.

So I said to the driver, “Why don’t we just wait here a minute.”

The evening was everything we could have hoped. We reveled in the glory and excitement of it all. Feeling confident and worldly, we came out of the dinner to find a sea of limousines serving all the patrons at the World Trade Center that evening.

They all looked the same.
After spotting what I thought was our limo, I discreetly walked up and motioned for the driver to lower his window. He cracked the window a few inches, and I quietly asked him,

“Who are you waiting for?” . . . He said, “NOT YOU.” And up went his window.

The masters of the universe couldn’t even find their car. So we just waited until all the other limos had left.

Our values were skewed that night.

Over the years, I have tried to remember the lesson of integrity that I learned at my first client dinner…and the lesson of pride . . . . that I learned at my first partner’s dinner. They were lessons . . . about seduction . . . seduction by ambition, by money, by power, by arrogance and conceit.

You can see where it all might lead by just reading the papers.

I don’t know whether you followed the Bernard Ebbers/WorldCom trial, but what struck me most were the photographs of Ebbers as he came out of the courthouse after the verdict. He had just been found guilty on all counts . . . . with a maximum of 85 years in prison—at the very least, most of the rest of his life.

The devastated look on his face clearly revealed the realization that life as he knew it was over. . . . In the photos, you could see him asking himself:

How has it come to this? What have I lost? Was anything worth losing my freedom – my life?

And for once at least, he was not measuring his loss in money. . . . At what point did he start on that path?

At what point did he forget he was risking his family, his friends, his freedom, his values and the other important things that you earn at an institution such as this?

I wonder what Bernard Ebbers would tell you if he were your graduation speaker. Surely, he would pay dearly to be in your seat today . . . . to start over.

As every speaker at every commencement at every college in the country is telling graduates today, you are setting forth on what should be a wonderful path, and who knows where it might lead?

I’m excited for you. I remember the feeling…feelings of joy, wonder and the excitement of the unknown. I am confident it will be the same for you.

So, enjoy . . . and celebrate . . . and revel in the great adventures ahead of you, but do not be seduced.

Remember the hopes placed in you by your family and this school. Remember the values that your diploma represents.
Remember that beacon – the light that is the University of Texas.
And remember that, as alumni, you now carry the light that is the University of Texas within you.

Let it shine.
Let it guide.
Let it illuminate your lives.

Graduates of the Class of 2005, you have my warmest congratulations and my most heartfelt best wishes.

Godspeed.
 

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