Be Hungry, Be Foolish, and Be Happy
Dr. Michael J. Collins, president and CEO of CEM Corporation, delivered the following commencement address at the University of Texas at Austin Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry graduation on May 18, 2012.
Downloadable PDF
Good afternoon and thank you very much. It is my great pleasure to be here addressing the graduating class of one of the truly great universities in the world. I am also extremely honored to be asked to do this for the second year in a row. Either I must have done a good job last year, or they just could not find anyone else this year.
In my remarks today, I will focus first of all on my journey, and what it has meant to me. In particular, I will mention four key events that helped define my career. Secondly, I want to discuss the world as it currently exists and project some key changes that will be occurring in the next 5 to 10 years. I hope you find these remarks interesting and useful.
I feel like one of the most fortunate people in the world. I am living the American dream. Starting a company in a garage and eventually growing it into a global player in the scientific instrument marketplace. How did all of this happen?
My business career started with a paper route when I was twelve years old. There were 120 customers. I lived on an Air Force base where people were being transferred every one to two years, so the customer turnover was very high.
This meant I had to work hard, continually signing up new customers and staying current on my collections so I did not lose money on people being transferred. It taught me a lot about getting and retaining customers, cash flow, and profitability. It also awakened in me an entrepreneurial spirit that drove me from that day on to someday start my own business.
My father was an engineer from MIT. Because of that, I decided to major in engineering when I started college. I quickly discovered that I did not like engineering and was not doing well in my initial coursework. Fortunately, I was also taking a chemistry course, which I found to be fascinating. Based on this, I dropped engineering and changed my major to chemistry. This was a difficult decision because I felt like I had failed in my pursuit of engineering. The lesson learned is to find something you truly have a passion for and pursue it.
I ultimately went on to graduate school and received my PhD in physical chemistry from the University of Texas. During this time, more than anything, I learned how to think creatively and logically, and to become a better problem solver. I also spent many late nights after leaving the lab at Shultz’s Beer Garden having some very interesting and stimulating discussions with fellow students and professors. I worked on three different research projects before I finally succeeded. This taught me to keep trying and learn from my failures. When I finally had my “eureka” moment on my last project, it was very exciting and satisfying.
Fortunately, I had a number of job offers when I graduated and I accepted a position with Celanese Corporation, a multi-billion dollar Fortune 500 company located in North Carolina. North Carolina was somewhere I had never lived, but had heard good things about it and Celanese was in a major expansion mode. I received great training at Celanese in R&D, as well as sales and marketing, including extensive international experience. Without this experience, I would never have been successful in starting my own company.
I met two engineers at Celanese and the three of us started moonlighting on a product idea related to scientific instrumentation, which was outside of Celanese’s core business. We worked in one of the engineer’s garages, actually a very small garage, on weekends and in the evenings. Finally, after several years, I felt we had a viable product and was able to convince the other two to go full time into our own business. The lesson here is find something you believe in and go for it. Be willing to take the risk.
Once we got started, the company, which we named CEM, began to grow. We became very successful and eventually went public. For the next five years, we continued to grow and opened subsidiaries in Europe. Then, in the late nineties, our growth slowed and we began to feel the pressure of an underperforming public company. This pressure came from our Board of Directors, shareholders, analysts, and the relentless quarterly earnings estimates. These were all major distractions that severely impacted the business. The easy and safe path would have been to cash out and sell the business.
I passionately believed in the business and knew I could take it to another level, if I could get it out of the public arena. Fortunately, I was able to buy the business in a highly leveraged deal, which required me to borrow $20 million dollars and provide all kinds of personal guarantees. I totally bet my future on this one. Don’t be afraid to take big risks when you truly believe in something.
Buying the company back was like starting all over again, and we quickly regained our focus and began to truly innovate again. It reminded me of Steve Jobs’ story when he was fired from Apple Computer and had to start over again creating the new companies NeXT and Pixar. He said, “It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it.” It turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to him.
Since going private, the company has almost tripled in size in the past 10 years and the entire $20 million dollar debt was paid off in less than six years. We have become one of the leading scientific instrument companies with annual sales in excess of $80 million dollars and 285 people worldwide.
We are a global company doing business in all the developed markets around the world. We are the market leaders in all of our business areas and all of our products are unique and proprietary. We invest heavily in R&D, manufacture all of our products in the US, and export around the world.
I believe this will be the model for the future. Entrepreneurial companies like ours will become the primary growth engine for the US economy.
Now, I want to talk about the world you will be entering as you begin your careers and what I predict will be happening over the next 10 to 20 years. First of all, I advise all of you to pay no attention to all the gloom and doom and negativism you are bombarded with every day, particularly, the idea that your generation will have less opportunity than the previous ones.
When I started my career things were much worse than they are today. Unemployment was 9.7%, inflation was 13.5% and interest rates were 18%. It was called stagflation and we were told America’s best days were behind us and Japan and Germany would surpass the US. All of that changed in the 80’s and America had almost 30 years of the greatest wealth creation that has ever occurred. These ups and downs are normal for a free market economy.
Obviously, we are currently still in a slow growth period and just beginning to recover from a fairly severe recession. I predict we are on the verge of a major new era of growth for the US which will exceed anything we have seen in the past. It will be led by technology and last for the next 20 years. There has never been a better time to be alive and all of you will have greater opportunities than have ever existed before.
This growth will be driven by two megatrends – technology and globalization. These megatrends will allow a much larger percentage of the world population to become part of the developed world.
Science and technology will drive major changes in all the key areas of our lives and our economy. In the Life Sciences, we will see personalized medicine and many new drugs based on a better understanding of the various bio-processes at the molecular level.
There will be an explosion of new developments in the material science area. In the 80’s, it was polymers and plastics, as famously stated in the movie, The Graduate. Today, it will come from nano-technology research, which operates at the atomic and molecular level.
New technology will transform the way food is produced and processed. Food nutrition will continue to improve based on a better understanding at the molecular level.
Recent breakthroughs in natural gas and shale oil production will allow the US to become energy rich and self-sufficient. This will provide an “energy bridge” to the next century. Chemistry breakthroughs will allow the efficient and economical production of hydrogen, which will be used as a primary means of energy storage. This will create major new opportunities for solar power.
Transportation will change dramatically in next 20 years. The automobile, which has seen relatively little change in its first 100 years, will be transformed. Cars will be running on natural gas and ultimately hydrogen. They will be totally computer controlled while in operation. Electrified roads and/or wireless energy transfer will provide major breakthroughs for electric cars.
The digital world is what started many of the great changes that have occurred in the past 30 years and will continue to propel the revolution. New chemistry breakthroughs will eventually allow us to move beyond the silicon/semi-conductor age to the molecular level for data processing and storage, ultimately increasing performance by orders of magnitude.
Chemistry and biochemistry will provide a strong basis for all of these major growth areas. You have picked great majors which will provide unlimited opportunities for all of you in the future.
Let me now turn to the second megatrend, globalization. CEM has truly become a global corporation with our overall business being equally distributed between North America, Europe, and Asia. Developing this business has given me the opportunity to travel the world and spend time in each of the key markets.
Based on my experience, globalization is a positive trend and will create a higher standard of living for everybody in the world. It will also continue to be a major growth engine for the US economy.
The 21st Century will continue to be led by the US. It will be based on technological innovation and creativity. Entrepreneurial companies will lead the way with many amazing new developments in all areas of our lives.
The US has the greatest universities for science and technology in the world. They will help provide the training and education for our future entrepreneurs and provide some of the basic research that will become the basis for future innovation.
We will continue to be the melting pot for different societies from all over the world. We also have the most free and open society that has ever existed. This diversity and openness helps us to be some of the most creative and entrepreneurial people in the world.
Our manufacturing base will be re-invented with new technological breakthroughs. 3D printing, supply chain innovations, and lower energy costs based on our natural gas and shale oil reserves will be major factors in the manufacturing rebirth.
US manufacturing will again become preeminent in the world, re-establishing ourselves as the most efficient and innovative. This transformation has already begun. Currently, we are building BMWs in South Carolina in one of the most automated and efficient car plants in existence and then shipping these cars all over the world.
Entrepreneurial companies like those created in the past 20 years will be our growth engine for the future. Our greatest companies in the next 20 years likely do not even exist today. They will be started by new entrepreneurs and visionaries like Steve Jobs in garages and other humble beginnings. Hopefully, some of you will be involved in helping start or develop some of these enterprises.
The profile for these new companies will be similar. They will be nimble, flexible and highly entrepreneurial in nature. Their driving force will be exceptional new products and services, which will be provided on a global basis. They will be characterized by high R&D investment and lean manufacturing.
New technological tools now make it possible for these small start-up companies to become global players. Technology has lowered the barrier to entry. As an example, big pharmaceutical companies are now looking to small start-up biotech and drug discovery companies for their future breakthroughs.
Science-based technology companies will continue to change the world. Chemistry and biochemistry will drive many of these companies.
Your goal is to go forward and truly become our greatest generation ever. I have no doubt this will happen. The changes you will experience in your lifetime will be truly amazing.
My advice to you is the following. First of all, be confident in your future. Be hungry, be foolish, and be happy. Find something you have a passion for and pursue it with all your energy and determination. Whatever you decide to do, be the absolute best at it and keep challenging yourself. Always be prepared, but be bold and think big. Be nimble, flexible, and open to change. Keep reinventing yourself. Finally, and most importantly, stay positive and always be optimistic.
Congratulations again to all of you as you begin the next phase of your exciting journeys! I wish you great success and hope to hear from some of you in the future.
And remember, as Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
All the best!
Thank you.
Good afternoon and thank you very much. It is my great pleasure to be here addressing the graduating class of one of the truly great universities in the world. I am also extremely honored to be asked to do this for the second year in a row. Either I must have done a good job last year, or they just could not find anyone else this year.
In my remarks today, I will focus first of all on my journey, and what it has meant to me. In particular, I will mention four key events that helped define my career. Secondly, I want to discuss the world as it currently exists and project some key changes that will be occurring in the next 5 to 10 years. I hope you find these remarks interesting and useful.
I feel like one of the most fortunate people in the world. I am living the American dream. Starting a company in a garage and eventually growing it into a global player in the scientific instrument marketplace. How did all of this happen?
My business career started with a paper route when I was twelve years old. There were 120 customers. I lived on an Air Force base where people were being transferred every one to two years, so the customer turnover was very high.
This meant I had to work hard, continually signing up new customers and staying current on my collections so I did not lose money on people being transferred. It taught me a lot about getting and retaining customers, cash flow, and profitability. It also awakened in me an entrepreneurial spirit that drove me from that day on to someday start my own business.
My father was an engineer from MIT. Because of that, I decided to major in engineering when I started college. I quickly discovered that I did not like engineering and was not doing well in my initial coursework. Fortunately, I was also taking a chemistry course, which I found to be fascinating. Based on this, I dropped engineering and changed my major to chemistry. This was a difficult decision because I felt like I had failed in my pursuit of engineering. The lesson learned is to find something you truly have a passion for and pursue it.
I ultimately went on to graduate school and received my PhD in physical chemistry from the University of Texas. During this time, more than anything, I learned how to think creatively and logically, and to become a better problem solver. I also spent many late nights after leaving the lab at Shultz’s Beer Garden having some very interesting and stimulating discussions with fellow students and professors. I worked on three different research projects before I finally succeeded. This taught me to keep trying and learn from my failures. When I finally had my “eureka” moment on my last project, it was very exciting and satisfying.
Fortunately, I had a number of job offers when I graduated and I accepted a position with Celanese Corporation, a multi-billion dollar Fortune 500 company located in North Carolina. North Carolina was somewhere I had never lived, but had heard good things about it and Celanese was in a major expansion mode. I received great training at Celanese in R&D, as well as sales and marketing, including extensive international experience. Without this experience, I would never have been successful in starting my own company.
I met two engineers at Celanese and the three of us started moonlighting on a product idea related to scientific instrumentation, which was outside of Celanese’s core business. We worked in one of the engineer’s garages, actually a very small garage, on weekends and in the evenings. Finally, after several years, I felt we had a viable product and was able to convince the other two to go full time into our own business. The lesson here is find something you believe in and go for it. Be willing to take the risk.
Once we got started, the company, which we named CEM, began to grow. We became very successful and eventually went public. For the next five years, we continued to grow and opened subsidiaries in Europe. Then, in the late nineties, our growth slowed and we began to feel the pressure of an underperforming public company. This pressure came from our Board of Directors, shareholders, analysts, and the relentless quarterly earnings estimates. These were all major distractions that severely impacted the business. The easy and safe path would have been to cash out and sell the business.
I passionately believed in the business and knew I could take it to another level, if I could get it out of the public arena. Fortunately, I was able to buy the business in a highly leveraged deal, which required me to borrow $20 million dollars and provide all kinds of personal guarantees. I totally bet my future on this one. Don’t be afraid to take big risks when you truly believe in something.
Buying the company back was like starting all over again, and we quickly regained our focus and began to truly innovate again. It reminded me of Steve Jobs’ story when he was fired from Apple Computer and had to start over again creating the new companies NeXT and Pixar. He said, “It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it.” It turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to him.
Since going private, the company has almost tripled in size in the past 10 years and the entire $20 million dollar debt was paid off in less than six years. We have become one of the leading scientific instrument companies with annual sales in excess of $80 million dollars and 285 people worldwide.
We are a global company doing business in all the developed markets around the world. We are the market leaders in all of our business areas and all of our products are unique and proprietary. We invest heavily in R&D, manufacture all of our products in the US, and export around the world.
I believe this will be the model for the future. Entrepreneurial companies like ours will become the primary growth engine for the US economy.
Now, I want to talk about the world you will be entering as you begin your careers and what I predict will be happening over the next 10 to 20 years. First of all, I advise all of you to pay no attention to all the gloom and doom and negativism you are bombarded with every day, particularly, the idea that your generation will have less opportunity than the previous ones.
When I started my career things were much worse than they are today. Unemployment was 9.7%, inflation was 13.5% and interest rates were 18%. It was called stagflation and we were told America’s best days were behind us and Japan and Germany would surpass the US. All of that changed in the 80’s and America had almost 30 years of the greatest wealth creation that has ever occurred. These ups and downs are normal for a free market economy.
Obviously, we are currently still in a slow growth period and just beginning to recover from a fairly severe recession. I predict we are on the verge of a major new era of growth for the US which will exceed anything we have seen in the past. It will be led by technology and last for the next 20 years. There has never been a better time to be alive and all of you will have greater opportunities than have ever existed before.
This growth will be driven by two megatrends – technology and globalization. These megatrends will allow a much larger percentage of the world population to become part of the developed world.
Science and technology will drive major changes in all the key areas of our lives and our economy. In the Life Sciences, we will see personalized medicine and many new drugs based on a better understanding of the various bio-processes at the molecular level.
There will be an explosion of new developments in the material science area. In the 80’s, it was polymers and plastics, as famously stated in the movie, The Graduate. Today, it will come from nano-technology research, which operates at the atomic and molecular level.
New technology will transform the way food is produced and processed. Food nutrition will continue to improve based on a better understanding at the molecular level.
Recent breakthroughs in natural gas and shale oil production will allow the US to become energy rich and self-sufficient. This will provide an “energy bridge” to the next century. Chemistry breakthroughs will allow the efficient and economical production of hydrogen, which will be used as a primary means of energy storage. This will create major new opportunities for solar power.
Transportation will change dramatically in next 20 years. The automobile, which has seen relatively little change in its first 100 years, will be transformed. Cars will be running on natural gas and ultimately hydrogen. They will be totally computer controlled while in operation. Electrified roads and/or wireless energy transfer will provide major breakthroughs for electric cars.
The digital world is what started many of the great changes that have occurred in the past 30 years and will continue to propel the revolution. New chemistry breakthroughs will eventually allow us to move beyond the silicon/semi-conductor age to the molecular level for data processing and storage, ultimately increasing performance by orders of magnitude.
Chemistry and biochemistry will provide a strong basis for all of these major growth areas. You have picked great majors which will provide unlimited opportunities for all of you in the future.
Let me now turn to the second megatrend, globalization. CEM has truly become a global corporation with our overall business being equally distributed between North America, Europe, and Asia. Developing this business has given me the opportunity to travel the world and spend time in each of the key markets.
Based on my experience, globalization is a positive trend and will create a higher standard of living for everybody in the world. It will also continue to be a major growth engine for the US economy.
The 21st Century will continue to be led by the US. It will be based on technological innovation and creativity. Entrepreneurial companies will lead the way with many amazing new developments in all areas of our lives.
The US has the greatest universities for science and technology in the world. They will help provide the training and education for our future entrepreneurs and provide some of the basic research that will become the basis for future innovation.
We will continue to be the melting pot for different societies from all over the world. We also have the most free and open society that has ever existed. This diversity and openness helps us to be some of the most creative and entrepreneurial people in the world.
Our manufacturing base will be re-invented with new technological breakthroughs. 3D printing, supply chain innovations, and lower energy costs based on our natural gas and shale oil reserves will be major factors in the manufacturing rebirth.
US manufacturing will again become preeminent in the world, re-establishing ourselves as the most efficient and innovative. This transformation has already begun. Currently, we are building BMWs in South Carolina in one of the most automated and efficient car plants in existence and then shipping these cars all over the world.
Entrepreneurial companies like those created in the past 20 years will be our growth engine for the future. Our greatest companies in the next 20 years likely do not even exist today. They will be started by new entrepreneurs and visionaries like Steve Jobs in garages and other humble beginnings. Hopefully, some of you will be involved in helping start or develop some of these enterprises.
The profile for these new companies will be similar. They will be nimble, flexible and highly entrepreneurial in nature. Their driving force will be exceptional new products and services, which will be provided on a global basis. They will be characterized by high R&D investment and lean manufacturing.
New technological tools now make it possible for these small start-up companies to become global players. Technology has lowered the barrier to entry. As an example, big pharmaceutical companies are now looking to small start-up biotech and drug discovery companies for their future breakthroughs.
Science-based technology companies will continue to change the world. Chemistry and biochemistry will drive many of these companies.
Your goal is to go forward and truly become our greatest generation ever. I have no doubt this will happen. The changes you will experience in your lifetime will be truly amazing.
My advice to you is the following. First of all, be confident in your future. Be hungry, be foolish, and be happy. Find something you have a passion for and pursue it with all your energy and determination. Whatever you decide to do, be the absolute best at it and keep challenging yourself. Always be prepared, but be bold and think big. Be nimble, flexible, and open to change. Keep reinventing yourself. Finally, and most importantly, stay positive and always be optimistic.
Congratulations again to all of you as you begin the next phase of your exciting journeys! I wish you great success and hope to hear from some of you in the future.
And remember, as Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
All the best!
Thank you.
