1 Kelly A. Romano Corporate Business Development United Technologies Corporation College of Engineering and Computing Florida International University August 4, 2014 Dean Mirmiran [MIR-mur-on], faculty, distinguished guests, FIU alumni and especially you the professional inductees and your families and friends... I m honored to be here to share this important rite of passage with you. I find myself a little in awe of the commitment you re making today. This is a momentous occasion in your lives. Like young physicians taking the Hippocratic Oath, you re swearing to uphold the dignity and ethical standards of your profession. This ceremony is different from this evening s commencement exercises. You ll leave graduation with your degree in hand. You leave here with a whole new set of responsibilities to your future employers, your clients and customers and to the world at large. People will rely on you to make their lives better safer, more comfortable, healthier and more enjoyable. The professions you ve chosen engineering, computer science and construction say a lot about your talents and your character. So does the fact that you ve successfully made it through the rigors of FIU, one of the most demanding universities in the country. So congratulations! You re starting your professional lives at a time when the world urgently needs your talents. You already know that by the companies that are recruiting you and the
2 places where FIU graduates are already working: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, NASA, Chrysler and my own company, United Technologies. You have the opportunity to transform the world in new and once-unimaginable ways, in fields that are always evolving, from nanofabrication and ubiquitous computing... to materials science and structural engineering. I m especially pleased to be your speaker today. While I m not an engineer, computer scientist or builder, I have spent much of my career with the best and brightest people in these professions. I ve also spent a great deal of my career with the building owners, developers, consulting engineers and contractors who have been my customers at United Technologies. I d like to share with you some of my experiences as a business leader about delighting customers and about shaping a career that is both successful and personally satisfying. For me, the blueprint for having such a career is deceptively simple. I believe it comes down to a handful of essentials: Surround yourself with smart people... because success in today s complex world is never achieved alone. It s the result of collaboration among people with different strengths and diverse perspectives. Always be a learning person... and that includes being someone open to new experiences. Don t settle for making a living; decide you re also going to make a difference in this world. Set big goals and give it your all to achieve them. I d like to talk about each of these principles a bit more in depth. SURROUND YOURSELF WITH SMART PEOPLE
3 I have run a number of different large businesses during my career, and I have always had a practice of surrounding myself with the smartest people I could find people that were smarter than me. Because I knew that as a team, we could bounce ideas off each other and come up with the best, most informed decisions to satisfy our customers and keep them coming back for more. This is especially true when it comes to innovation. We all love the stories of the lone genius individuals who invent something that changes the world. But in today s complex, high-tech world, great breakthroughs are more often achieved through creative collaboration among people of different backgrounds and perspectives. Diversity is a catalyst for creativity. That s one of the many reasons you re lucky to have studied here in Miami at FIU. As Dean Mirmiran [MIR-mur-on] has said, the school s very name communicates the global perspective that is so important in today s economic environment. I m proud to be part of this community on the Advisory Board of the School of Engineering. I can feel the energy of this diverse urban campus, where students and faculty of different backgrounds and cultures from all over the world come together to pursue their professional dreams. ALWAYS BE A LEARNING PERSON Constant learning and a huge intellectual curiosity have helped me grow throughout my career. If you re not learning, you become stale. Your career flattens out and becomes less rewarding. Learning is more than formal education. It s also about being well-informed, keeping up with world events and understanding your customers needs before they tell you.
4 In today s global economy, people who are able to bridge cultural gaps and connect with people across geographies will be in great demand especially people with the technological skills you have. As a learning person, I urge you to seek out opportunities to gain international experience because I think it makes you more well-rounded and in tune with different cultures, needs, ways of doing business and in your case understanding the engineering challenges of the future. During my career I ve had the opportunity to travel throughout the world: I ve been served camel in Dubai, wondered exactly what I was eating in Beijing (and sometimes it was still moving) and endured the suffocating heat of Chongqing. Chongqing is a city of 33 million people probably the largest city in the world that most people have never heard of and one of China s Three Furnaces, located on the Yangtze River in Southwestern China. These experiences have broadened my horizons and helped me excel in my various assignments. MAKE A DIFFERENCE At United Technologies, we believe that successful businesses improve the human condition. I hope that you have chosen the fields of engineering, computer science and construction because you want to do more than make a living you want to make a difference. Urbanization has made sustainable technology an urgent priority for our planet and is one area where the world needs your talents. It s something we think about everyday at United Technologies given our aerospace and commercial building businesses. We re in the midst of a massive population shift from the countryside to the city, the greatest migration in human history. The world s urban population is growing by more than 65 million people annually.
5 Urbanization isn t new, of course. It s the scale that s overwhelming. In 1970, there were just two cities in the world with populations of more than 10 million so called megacities: Tokyo and New York. Today there are 23. By 2025, the number is expected to reach 37. Cities are not only getting bigger; they re also getting taller much, much taller. Today, the world s tallest building is Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It stands 2,700 feet high, or more than a half mile. The Saudis are putting up a building that will stand a staggering 3,280 feet when it s finished in 2017 an engineering impossibility not so long ago. These new buildings present great engineering challenges for our Building & Industrial Systems business at UTC that has to design elevators, air conditioning, and fire and security systems that can serve a building of this height. As we think about it, urbanization is good for human progress. It drives economic growth and sharply reduces poverty. But cities are also a drain on natural resources, consuming 66 percent of the world s energy supply. Cities emit 70 to 80 percent of total global carbon emissions. Buildings alone account for 40 percent of these emissions. Scientists and engineers across the world are working on smart technologies to enhance building efficiency and achieve net-zero-energy buildings that is - buildings that produce as much energy as they consume. Thanks to schools like FIU, the United States remains a leader in the field. I ve had the opportunity to be involved in the development of green technologies such as the world s most efficient chiller, designed to cool today s large commercial buildings. It was hugely satisfying for members of my team the engineers and the rest of us knowing we were creating world-class technology that would reduce energy consumption and make the world a better place. We made a difference!
6 SET BIG GOALS During my career, I ve always set big goals for myself. I never let anybody tell me I couldn t do something. As the scientists, engineers and builders of tomorrow, I urge you to think big! You now have the education and that required a lot of hard work. You have a bright future in front of you. Only you can set big goals for yourself. In closing, the School of Engineering and Computing celebrates its 30th anniversary in October. A lot has happened since 1984. Apple introduced the first Macintosh computer that year. Today your iphone has more computer power than the Voyager 1 spacecraft that launched back in 1977 and recently became the first man-made object to leave our solar system for interstellar space. Mark Zuckerberg was born in 1984. Today, Facebook is a global phenomenon, with 1.23 billion users. You and your fellow scientists and engineers will invent the technologies that change the world in equally radical ways over the next 30 years. So let s get to it. We here in this room, companies around the world and the generations to come are counting on you to imagine, dream and develop the next round of great innovations that shape our quality of life and even determine the fate of our planet! Congratulations again and thank you. End