The newest IOM

Several weeks ago I completed a 4 year program presented by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to be certified in Non-Profit Management and receive the designation, IOM (Institute for Organization Management). I was selected by my classmates (a very high honor and one I am completely unworthy of holding) to deliver the commencement remarks for our class. I have been asked to post my commencement remarks here and share them on my blog. These words were from the heart. My IOM class is one of the greatest groups of people ever assembled.

Southeast Institute 2008 - 4C1 Class remarks:

The question I ask tonight is: What’s in a name?

If you Google IOM, you will find that we can be certified in a lot of areas, or belong to a number of groups, not just chamber and association management.

We could be with:
1. the Institute of Medicine (to further the studies in medicine),
2. the International Organization for Migration (relocating refugees),
3. Institute of Occupational Medicine,
4. Institute for Objective Measurement (whose mission is to bring understanding to measurement)
5. We could be included in the Indian Order of Merit, (a medal of gallantry for Native Americans),
6. live on the Isle of Man,
7. belong to the Institute of Operating Management,
8. We could be undergoing Intra-Operative Monitoring, (testing the integrity of the brain during surgery),
9. buying stock in the Iomega Corporation,
10. or learn about Inverse Ocean Modeling,
11. studying with the scholars at the Institute of Meteoritic, (for planetary evolution)
12. or writing Investigations Operations Manuals, (a division of the FDA).
13. Perhaps we might belong to the International Organization for Mycoplasmology (which studies mollicutes bacteria),
14. or maybe we could be eating IOM soybeans (which are full of fiber, high in protein and are genetically modified).

Or, as in the case tonight, we could belong to the prestigious class of the Institute for Organization Management. For more than 80 years, associations and chambers have used the U.S. Chamber's Institute as a training platform for the professional development of their future leaders.

So I ask again what’s in a name:

To my classmates named: Charley, Kathleen, Randy, Reva, Pennie, Thad, Annie, Valerie, Aura Lee, Diana, Cindy, Laurette, Dana, Janet, Amy, Radford, Tom, Crystal and last but not least, Kenny….thank you.

Thank you for being you, for being my friends, my colleagues, and above all….like family.

This list of names is the best ever. And, in a few short moments, this list of names will each get a little longer, as we now attach the IOM designation to our names, which is a true accomplishment and a success.
And while you’re creating your own definition of success, let me leave you with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s. He said success is:

“To laugh often and much;To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;To appreciate beauty;To find the best in others;To leave the world a little better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;To know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.”

So in closing I would leave each of you with the hope that as you make your own choices over time, you will choose in such a way that allows your drive for achievement to be balanced by an equal commitment to love and to play, to family, to friends and community. For nothing, no amount of power or success is worth more than these.

I hope instead that when you are "old and gray and full of sleep," as the poet William Butler Yeats once wrote, that you can say that your goal in life was not the perfection of work alone but the perfection of a life.

I can certainly speak for myself and say that in my pursuit of the perfection of a life, I cannot imagine it without every one of you, our Class of 2008, Section 1, as a part of it.

Always remember our class motto, “We’re Number 1 for a Reason.”

Thank you.