My prime objective today is to give you my perception of the exciting and challenging future that you will, no doubt, shape as global engineers, scientists, architects, managers of business and technology, and citizens.

I am going to tell you a story that begins some time ago and doesn’t have an ending because the ending relates to your future after you graduate. The story begins some 30 years before you were born, in 1955, when I was a member of the Class of 1959. We were young and filled with anxiety and fear and we were anxious to get started. We were oriented in more traditional paths of engineering and science. There were no laptop computers and we used the ancient device called a slide rule. We made enduring friendships and we had great professors and TAs who were tough intellectually but fair. We asked questions all the time and when we asked for help we got it.

With these facts in mind let’s talk about today based on inputs from recent graduates. Break out! Try new things; try everything (OK, not everything!) Try to earn a minor, or even a second major, for those of you who think that 16 credits per semester is child’s play. Use the Career Development Center. Learn it, live it, love it. Many of you will gain experience in working as part of a team in the Multi-Disciplinary Laboratory where you will lead a portion of a project.

Now let’s discuss the future. Your 21st century world will be a time of revolutionary innovation and career long learning carried out on a global scale, with international partnerships, finite resources, and a deep concern for the environment. Nanotechnology will give us the ability to manipulate matter one atom or molecule at a time. This technology could lead to a future of dramatic breakthroughs. In the world of information technology, computing will take us to three orders of magnitude beyond existing capabilities. Biotechnology, which involves the use or alteration of biological molecules or cells, impacts all walks of life.

The National Science Foundation priority areas include information technology research and nanoscale science and engineering.

The Department of Energy is leading the way with the Freedom CAR and Hydrogen Fuel Initiative programs that offer the potential to virtually eliminate the use of petroleum and emissions. The DOE has also launched a bold program to release the potential of fusion to produce electricity. Fusion, the physical process that powers the sun, is an energy source for the future that could transform the way we produce electricity. NASA has underway an Integrated Space Transportation Plan including an orbital space plane and next generation launch systems which some of you will work on. NASA’s new Project Prometheus will demonstrate breakthrough nuclear propulsion and power technologies that can enable intensive exploration of several moons in the outer solar system.

Evolving aeronautical technologies hold the promise of creating a whole new era in aviation to meet the transportation and national defense challenges of the 21st century. The use of nanotechnology could result in new structural materials that are 100 times stronger than steel and one-sixth the weight. Future aircraft could weigh half of the weight of aircraft today, be extremely flexible, reform wing shape for optimal flight, resist damage, and self heal.

The Department of Transportation’s 21st century goal is to develop internationally competitive, domestically produced automobiles and trucks that achieve unprecedented gains in fuel efficiency in both environmental and operational performance, including greenhouse gas emissions. So the story that began in 1955 and spanned to your future in the 21st century has no ending as I said—you will write it. Enjoy every bit of what RPI has to offer. And when you graduate, no matter where you are, “give back” to RPI. I know you will succeed because you are the best and the brightest.