President Janet Napolitano Remarks St. Ignatius Downtown Business Lunch InterContinental Hotel San Francisco, CA March 8, :30 a.m.

Transcription

1 As prepared for delivery President Janet Napolitano Remarks St. Ignatius Downtown Business Lunch InterContinental Hotel San Francisco, CA March 8, :30 a.m. Thank you, Paul. And thank you to the alumni of St. Ignatius for that warm Wildcat welcome! I m delighted to be here today. While I am not a graduate of SI myself, I understand how deep the Bay Area roots of Jesuit education run. My father, Leonard, was a graduate of Santa Clara University. He was born in Oakland to Italian immigrants. My grandfather, Filippo, worked as a manual laborer at the Port of Oakland just across the Bay. My Dad played football at Castlemont High School, and then won an athletic scholarship to Santa Clara. Now, let s see a show of hands how many of you here are Santa Clara Broncos? Excellent! You may be pleased to hear that my dad was the quarterback for the Santa Clara Orange Bowl team that beat Bear Bryant s Kentucky Wildcats in A love of football and friendly competition were not the only values instilled in me as a young Napolitano. After he hung up his jersey, my father earned a Ph.D. in Anatomy, and ultimately became Dean of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine a position he held for more than 20 years. Dinner table conversations often turned to Dad s work at the med school, which was built in the 1960s to better serve the people of New Mexico. The concept of public service and the importance of giving back were reinforced with me and my siblings throughout our childhood. 1

2 After I graduated from high school, I followed in my father s footsteps to Santa Clara. And this is where I learned about the tenets of a Jesuit education first hand. I know from Paul and other Wildcats that SI, like Santa Clara University, is a family school built on Jesuit principles. Put simply, that means SI students are called on to act as men and women for others. It means they learn, early on, that of those who have much, much is expected. And fundamentally, it means that they are taught to make a difference in their communities, both close to home and in the world at large. For me, these principles have served as guideposts throughout my career in public service. They help illuminate why I have spent so much of my adult life determined to make a difference. Most people know me today as a former Governor of Arizona, or a former Secretary of Homeland Security, or as the current President of the University of California. But I d like to spend a few minutes this afternoon sharing two stories with you about some of my earlier experiences. These experiences illustrate why public service has been such a meaningful mission for me. The first story takes place in the early 1990s. I had just left my job in private practice as a lawyer to begin my first full-time public service role as U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona. Not long after I started, a young man left a rental truck filled with nearly 5,000 pounds of explosives in front of a federal building in Oklahoma City. The bomb that detonated at 9:02 that morning killed 168 people including several children and severely injured many others. At that time, the Oklahoma City Bombing was the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil. To this day, it is considered one of the most grievous acts of domestic terrorism in our country's history. Now, whenever a terrorist attack takes place, law enforcement teams immediately go to work to determine what happened, and who was responsible. 2

3 Within a couple of days of the Oklahoma City Bombing, federal authorities identified Timothy McVeigh as the prime suspect. McVeigh was an Army veteran who had served in the Persian Gulf War, and earned a Bronze Star. After his military service ended, McVeigh wandered around the country. But he planned much of his lethal attack with an associate in Kingman, Arizona. That meant that as Arizona s U.S. Attorney, I helped lead the investigation into the Oklahoma City Bombing. As many of you probably remember, McVeigh was ultimately convicted and later executed. Helping to bring a perpetrator to justice, and bringing some measure of closure to the families and friends of the Oklahoma City Bombing victims, were moments that brought home to me how meaningful public service can be. And these moments reaffirmed for me that I wanted to do more. So, in 1998, I decided to run for Attorney General of Arizona. Now, some might argue that politics is not a form of public service. (Especially in a presidential election year.) But I disagree. Fundamentally, politics means serving the people the public in your community, whether that community is local or national. Some of the most important collective decisions of our country are entrusted to our political institutions, from city councils, to our state capitals, to the federal government in Washington, DC. These decisions include: how and whom we tax; how we set budget priorities; how we decide whether to go to war; and how we will otherwise engage the international community. When I entered my first political race the race for Attorney General I prepared myself for long days on the campaign trail, tough questions from voters and the press, and a grueling fight against my opponent. To say that this was an exercise in public service that differed from my time as U.S. Attorney would be an understatement. Thankfully, the practice of politics is not all misery. In fact, it s often fun. 3

4 I enjoyed assembling my own team. I found it fulfilling to learn how to deal with the ups and downs of a political campaign from the unexpected newspaper endorsement, to the Friday afternoon bombshells dropped by my opponent. Most of all, I enjoyed meeting the voters. When I was running for office, I had a standard routine on Sunday mornings. After church services ended, I would pick a grocery store usually in a neighborhood with lots of independent or centrist voters and go stand outside its door. I would talk to anyone who walked in or out of that door. And almost everyone would talk to me. They voiced their concerns about drugs and crime. They asked for my thoughts on the death penalty. They challenged me, and they demanded to know why I was running for office. My answer always was simple: I was running to work for them. The voters outside those grocery stores must have heard something they liked and they must have liked that I heard them, too because I won that race for Attorney General. And it was in this role that I took my public service efforts to a new level. I had the opportunity to take on Big Tobacco. To eliminate the huge backlog of foster child placement cases that had built up in Arizona. To litigate against a national accounting firm that had defrauded thousands of senior citizens of their retirement earnings. And to prosecute some of the first cybercrime cases in the state. Ultimately, I came to know Arizona and its communities more deeply and intimately than I could have by reading any briefing paper or history book. I learned how to make a difference in the state I loved. And I became a better public servant. The three institutions I referenced here today are powerful examples of that same public service spirit. I m talking, of course, about SI, Santa Clara, and UC. These three schools are each woven into the broader California story of public service. Early Californians decided they wanted to make a difference by building these institutions right here in the Bay Area. They wanted to provide future generations with the opportunities to earn a good education, and to learn the lessons they needed to make a difference, and to give back. 4

5 And as a Bronco who now leads Bears, Bruins, and Banana Slugs, and who is speaking to a room full of Wildcats, I am proud to play a part in carrying on that legacy of public service. Thank you for the opportunity to address you today. Go Wildcats! And in the words of the University of California s motto, Fiat Lux or, Let There Be Light. 5