May 16, 2006

Mission Health and Hospitals president and CEO, Joseph Damore speaks during the A-B Tech spring commencement where more than 450 students received degrees and diplomas.

Faculty Member of the Year, Ron Layne, left, with A-B Tech President K. Ray Bailey at spring commencement May 12.

Adjunct of the Year, Ron Ferrigno, left, with A-B Tech President K. Ray Bailey at spring commencement May 12.

More than 450 degrees and diplomas were awarded during spring commencement May 12 at Thomas Wolfe Auditorium. Joseph Damore, president and CEO of Mission Health and Hospitals, gave the address during the ceremony.

“Many of our Allied Health students have been provided clinical rotations in the Mission Hospitals, and if you’ve ever been a patient in one of those hospitals, the outstanding care extended to you is most likely from an A-B Tech graduate,” said President K. Ray Bailey, thanking Damore for the outstanding partnership between the college and the hospital system.

Damore told A-B Tech graduates that this was not the end of their educational life. “You are going forward to learn more,” he said, explaining that they were at the beginning of their lifelong learning, as the word commencement means beginning.

“Successful people establish a core set of values built on integrity,” he said. “If you always tell the truth, you don’t need a long memory.” He also acknowledged that there is no such thing as a self-made man or woman. “We are all dependent on other people for our successes.”

Damore said other attributes of successful people included setting clear, measurable goals. “There was a survey at Yale University done on the class of 1962 where it was discovered only two percent of the class had clear goals,” he said. Thirty years later, it was determined that those in the two percent had acquired 70 percent of the wealth of that class.

Damore encouraged students to take risks and not let setbacks defeat them. “I hope you find your passion and not be afraid of new things,” he said. “Success comes from within, not without.” He mentioned Victor Frankel’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning” and how the greatest gift humans have is the choice we have about our own attitude. “Happiness is a choice.”

During the ceremony, President Bailey presented the Faculty Member of the Year Award to Developmental Math Instructor Ron Layne and the Adjunct Faculty Member of the Year Award to Biology Instructor Ron Ferrigno.