Commencement Address
Gail Evans '86, Microsoft
May 10, 2015
President Daan Braveman: We at Nazareth are so very proud of our alumna, Miss Gail Evans. Please join me in welcoming her.
(applause)
Gail Evans: Wow. It is such a pleasure to be here. All of the smiling faces. How was your evening last night? Or your weekend celebration, may I ask?
(cheering)
Oh, that didn’t sound too good. You guys didn’t have fun last evening before your big day?
(whistling)
Okay.
(laughter)
All right.
Well, thank you. Thank you, Nazareth. Thank you, Board of Trustees, President Braveman, Gabe Marshall, Kelly Gagan, Nazareth faculty, alumni, Nazareth community.
And thank you, class of 2015, an elite class right here at Nazareth. Thank you so very much. I congratulate all of you for all the hard work you put in to get here today. I also want to thank your parents, your grandparents, your sisters, your brothers, your uncles, your aunts, all of those who helped you to be here today.
Congratulations to you, Nazareth class. Thank you.
(applause)
What an incredible honor to be here with you today. I love this college. I would not be standing here with all the different acronyms—VP of HP.com, CIO of Eastman Kodak Company—without Nazareth College. It started with a group of faculty who believed in me, that held extra office hours, and that was there when times were up and when times were down. And I know some of you have a few testimonies for that as well.
The community at Nazareth helped me a great deal. So I’ll keep this short, because that little girl from Alphonse Street, the inner city of Rochester, would not be standing here had it not been for Nazareth College.
As I sat here with big tears in my eyes, some for you and some for me, I thought, “What a great moment, a defining moment, the start of a new chapter in your life, and a blessed moment for me.”
I felt a lot of pressure as well as I thought about what you would want to hear from me. But more importantly, I wanted to know what would you tweet about me.
(laughter)
So I thought, “Well, maybe I should create a hashtag, GailEvans@Nazareth or somethin’. So then I said, “Well, don’t be nervous, what the heck. Just go be you.” So that’s what you’ll get for the next five to ten minutes, is that daughter of Louise Evans, who I attribute everything that I am to, a single mother of six, full of joy, full of prayer, full of faith, who raised the custodian, the VP, the CTO, the CIO, but I haven’t quite met that CEO yet. I’m still working on what that will be. The CEO of my own company, I hope. My one hope for you today is that I can be some source of inspiration, that the experiences that I share create a spark, plant a seed, give you something to remember as you embark upon your journey.
So I have three areas and three experiences that I thought maybe you’d be interested in hearing about. The first one is that there’s never a failure. My life has had many twists and turns, zig-zags, ups and downs, but never a failure.
Seems impossible. Don’t you agree?
Let me give you a couple of examples. I left high school with lots of energy and hope to achieve greatness, to return back to my community and pull forward a child. But life just got in the way. I spent three years at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. I quit in my junior year. I got a job as a custodian at Eastman Kodak Company.
Would you say I failed?
Another example: while at Bank of America, a reorganization caused a change in my role and responsibilities. Some would have perceived it as a lesser role, definitely a dramatic change in the number of folks that I led.
Did I fail?
I stand here in front of you today to say no, never a failure. I realized that sometimes life moves you in a different direction. Let me say that again, because you’ll come to hear these words again in your careers. Because life will move you into a different direction and by no means is that a failure.
When I left Hobart and William Smith Colleges, I built a lot of character as a custodian. It’s amazing how people treat you when you are there to pick up their garbage every day. It’s amazing what they say to you, what they chat about you, but glory comes in the mornin’. One of that same group of people who had so many negative things to say about that young black girl that was picking up that trash came to interview with me one day.
Glory, glory, glory.
(laughter)
(applause)
I must say, I loved it. And so I proceeded to say, “Hi. Don’t you remember me?”
“No, of course not, Miss Evans.”
Oh, now it’s Miss Evans. Okay.
(laughter)
So I proceeded to remind him just a bit. I mean, I was nice. But I wanted him to know to be careful who you see along the way. Just be careful. And no, I will not hire you today. Thank you.
(laughter)
But the one great thing about leaving Hobart and William Smith Colleges is that I graduated from Nazareth College.
(applause)
And that Bank of America job? Well, sometimes you have supervisors that just don’t understand. I used to think all my supervisors were always right, and then I learned they’re just people, too, and they make mistakes, and it’s okay for me to be smarter than them.
(laughter)
So at Bank of America, three months after I was moved and life shifted me to a different direction, I got a call from a recruiter. A friend of colleague of mine had sent my résumé to Hewlett-Packard. And they were down to the last two finalists. And they gave me a call.
At first, I didn’t know what to do. I was scared, thought I was dreaming, crank call, you know, my friends-- Do you have friends that just do crank crazy stuff? And they knew I was having a moment as life was shifting me into a different direction, so I thought, well, maybe they just wanted to cheer me up.
But it was actually a recruiter from HP. And they wanted me to fly down to the West Coast and interview. After I hung up the phone, there’s this little friend of mine that I call the Friend of Doubt and Insecurity. And it always brings a bit of doubt into a direction.
I had to learn how to crush that doubt and move the other way. I stand before you today to say that that shift in my role at Bank of America led me to become the vice president of HP.com.
(applause)
You know, my mom used to say, “Just have faith, Gail. There’s a plan and a path out there for you that no one can ever disrupt.” So I stand here today to share with you that when life moves you in a different direction, it is never a failure, because once you have failure in your mind, it’s hard to overcome it.
So no, I did not fail. I learned to be strong. I learned to continuously adapt, to never give up, to follow my internal GPS, because that path is just for me. For every shift in your life, take the learning with you, embrace it, and all the things that you didn’t want to learn? Throw ‘em away. They’re just not worth keeping.
The second point I’d like to share with you today is you gotta find what you love, and it’s definitely a journey.
There’s a number of folks that stand before a class and they say, “Go for what you love!”
That’s so hard. You’re like, “What do I love? Mm, let me see. The guy I met my freshman year. The woman I met my freshman year. The professor who gave me an A when she should have given me a B plus.” How do you find what you love?
I want to share a quote from Oprah Winfrey that has stayed with me for a while. She says, “Your life is your greatest teacher. Everything that happens is taking you home to yourself. Connect it to an energy force that has unlimited power.”
I’ll try that again.
“Your life is your greatest teacher. Everything that happens is taking you home to yourself. Connect it to an energy force that has unlimited power.”
There’s a hyper-competitive world out there. People chasing after money. And I’m not sure if folks know that the casino is the house, and the house always wins.
So how can you chase for money?
Big offices, big cars, ruthless competition.
Some of us will thrive and some of us will not.
As a graduate, you’ll need to decide on what matters to you. What is your passion?
How will you question conventional wisdom? What will make a difference for you?
My journey of wanting to become a history teacher, to falling in love with DOS.
How many of you know DOS? Probably not very many. You guys grew up in Windows, huh? There are some parents out there that I know have seen DOS before, and that C: prompt in their lives.
(laughter)
Maybe you don’t want to admit that right now, but you’ve seen the DOS prompt for sure.
I was thirsty for knowledge. I wanted to understand everything about technology. I wanted to be the best. And you know what? I am the best.
Who’s gonna tell me I’m not?
I became the best: the best in computers, the best in the internet, the best in cloud services, and now big data.
But I used the income from the skills to take care of my family, because, you see, that’s who I am. I found that I love giving back. I found that I wanted to be there for my family financially, emotionally, and spiritually.
And, oh, by the way, a few coins helped, right, so you know, getting the degree and moving forward, but giving back was my passion, and that’s what I wanted to do, so I encourage you to follow your heart and your purpose, and then just go do that. And never let anyone tell you what “that” is, because I believe right now you don’t know what that is. But you will, and it will find itself in your heart as you embark upon this great journey.
My third and last point is have some fun, please.
(cheering)
(applause)
Do not forget to laugh, and sometimes laugh at yourself.
You ever laugh at yourself?
You get up in the morning, “Why did I drink all of that alcohol last night?”
(laughter)
And then you fall back into this, “And what did I do last night?”
Oh, I’m sure none of you had any of those moments; parents, teachers, you’ve not had that moment.
But laugh at yourself. I used to be a very serious person, if you can imagine that. I thought I had to be serious in the workplace, and I did not bring myself to work. I don’t know who I brought. She was somebody, I’m not sure who she was, but I didn’t bring myself to work because I thought if I brought the inner-city child who grew up on Alphonse Street into corporate America, no one would like me. So I tried to become who they were.
Boy, was that a joke.
And then I met some angels along the way—Billy Cate, senior executive at Eastman Kodak Company, who taught me that it was okay to be me, and being me was okay, and if sometimes my English wasn’t a hundred percent, that was okay. We understood what you meant.
And then I met Bill Atkinson, who promoted me to an executive. Because when I brought Gail to work, I did my best work. And I had fun every single day with my team, with my colleagues, and I allowed myself to just be me.
So, have some fun, be you, and laugh at yourself a couple times. It’ll keep you honest.
In conclusion, I’d like to say I hope this wasn’t too long, I tried to keep it short, and when you tweet about me, please be nice.
(laughter)
Just kidding.
Stay hungry, follow your heart, find out what makes you come alive, and go do that. You have to know what brings you alive in your own way.
My mom used to say, “Go be you, girl. Just go be you.”
Watch out. Here comes the class of 2015.
This Nazareth class will illuminate the world. I appreciate your attention and your time.
Thank you.
(applause)
