73 RD LAUREL WREATH LAUREATE
is not an entitlement, it is not given and it should always be obvious without question.
Thank you Miami (FL) Alumni Chapter and the Southern Province. Thank you Stamford (CT) Alumni Chapter and the Northeastern Province. A special thanks to the Brothers of Lambda Delta Chapter at Georgia Tech and to Brothers Dexter Henderson, John Burrell and Linnes Finney Jr. To my inspirational Brothers, John Jacob, Laureate #60, Tom Moorehead, Laureate #66, John W. Thompson, Chairman of Microsoft and the great Sam Jones, NBA Hall of Famer. To my close friends over the years, Brothers Basil Jeffers, Hen- derson Tillman and Kelly Holloway, my first cousin, Brother Rico Adkins and my blood brother, Brother Barry Adkins. You know, my life’s journey is not a perfect one and in fact, I’m really not supposed to be here. I was fortunate enough to come from a family with strong values, and I must admit that these values were tested in the streets of Miami each and every day. My family didn’t have deep financial resources, but we had standards and determination that were enough to transform this annoyingly curious young man who sported a paper thin Afro and a gold front tooth, to be a more refined, responsible and contributing citizen. During my Rollins College days, I recall there were around 1200 students on campus, of which 25 of us were African American. Rollins never had a Black fraternity or sorority on campus and I badly wanted to be a Nupe because I was fortunate to meet some great Kappa men along my journey. Thanks to the help of nearby Gamma Theta chapter at Bethune-Cookman University, we established a charter line at Rollins College 38 years ago. If you go to your Bibles and look up Ephesians, the fourth chap- ter and seventh verse. It tells us “ … for it is by his grace.” So you see that I’m very blessed to be here today. One of the most brilliant lifetime decisions, made by many of us here today, was to become a member of this great frater- nity. And I think the spirit of achievement is our ability to understand that every action we take is about accomplishing something. We often talk about achievement in bold and grand terms, or significant results, or even recognitions like the Laurel Wreath, which I’m very proud of. But every positive step or incremental action in life is all about achievement. Achievement is respect- fully earned in three ways, by results, by courage or by skill. It And finally, I do want to thank myself, Brother Rod Adkins be- cause after all I had something to do with all of this too.
So let me start wrapping up and allow me to bring out the engi- neer in me. For over 2.6 million years, mankind has been mak- ing advancements to deal with challenges for humanity, using every available resource. To deal with basic needs, we started with stones to make the first tools. We later made greater ad- vancements to deal with problems like gravity, so that we could lift and move things around; distance, in order to travel over surfaces like land, water and air; communication, in order to connect people not in the same physical location; vision, in or- der to see things as small as atoms or as far away as the stars. The 19 th century was driven by the industrial revolution, where machines changed the way people work. The 20 th century was about digital transformation, where the use of information tech- nologies made us more productive and efficient. Today, as we advance into the 21 st century, we are faced with industrial dis- ruption, where technology is changing what people actually do. So we must all recognize and we must adapt to a world being transformed by information and in addition to, climate change, cyber interaction, terrorism, a global population expected to reach 9.7 billion people by 2050, and radically new technolo- gies in areas such as regenerative medicine, artificial intelli- gence, and data science. So the question is are you prepared and what will you be doing in this century? For me, I’ve always been very proud of being a Kappa and this Laurel Wreath has awakened me to do even more for our Fraternity and our Black constituency. Our constituency continues to be impacted by structural in- equalities and I know you agree that every citizen is entitled to the best quality of life. We all want safe communities, af- fordable housing, good health, good education, access to op- portunities and jobs and a positive support structure. We are all faced with ongoing innovation, which will requires constant transformation and upgrading ourselves. The people and orga- nizations that will thrive are the ones willing to let go of aging traditions and practices and are willing to embrace new trends that are more consistent with the changes facing us. Progress and moving forward are all about preserving the best of the old and embracing the creativity of the new.
So in closing, we are all living in times where I tell people we must do the following:
First, commit to life long learning so that you can remain com- petitive. Continuous education is required from ages zero to eighty as the new norm. We should invest several hours every year on something that is new and relevant.
64 | FALL 2017 THE JOURNAL
Publishing achievement for more than 100 years
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