Good evening, everyone! It is an honor to be with you all here at York County Community College in the beautiful Sanford, Maine, to celebrate the achievements of this year’s graduating class.

Senator Collins, ma’am, thank you for that kind introduction, and for your many years of support and partnership with the Department of the Navy through your work on the Senate Appropriations Committee, especially in your capacity as the Vice Chair of the Subcommittee on Defense.

Since the founding of our Navy, Maine has played a crucial role in ensuring we are mission-ready.

From  shipbuilding to hosting bases across the state, as well offering up its sons and daughters to serve our Nation in our naval services, our Sailors, Marines, civilians, and their families are proud to call Maine home.

I would also like to thank President Daigler, President Fischer, and the Maine Community College System Board of Trustees for providing me with the opportunity to share this special day with you.

Early in my tenure as the 78th Secretary of the Navy, I announced education as one of the cornerstones of our enduring priority to Build a Culture of Warfighting Excellence.

Our nation’s vast network of community colleges is vital to providing those educational opportunities to Americans from all walks of life, meeting them in the communities where they work and reside to deliver world-class instruction across dozens of concentrations that allow them to realize their career goals.

Thank you, gentlemen and trustees, for your leadership of YCCC and the Maine Community College System, as well as your efforts on initiatives such as the Maine Defense Industry Alliance, which is aimed at bolstering this region’s shipbuilding workforce.

I would also like to thank my fellow speakers this evening, Mike and Geoff Howe, for sharing their inspiring story of success, harnessing the American spirit of innovation and ingenuity—a spirit that no doubt lives inside each and every one of the graduates before us today—to create solutions to meet the needs of their customers and benefit communities across our Nation.

To the friends and families of the Class of 2024 who are here this evening to support their graduates as they celebrate this incredible career and life milestone, thank you. 

Thank you for your presence, as well as the sacrifices you’ve made to get them to this point. 

You are the community and network they rely on to realize their success, and this day is as much about you as it is about them.

Finally, to the graduates, congratulations! Today marks the culmination of years of study, defined by classroom work, long nights in the library, group projects, hands-on training, and balancing time between work, families, and education.

But today is not the end of your journey—it is the beginning.

From preparing for positions in healthcare to computer science, from business, accounting, and finance to criminal justice, you are now equipped with the degrees and certificates to take the next step in building the careers that will support you and your families for decades to come.

As you contemplate what the future holds for you—both personally and professionally—I would ask that you consider a life of public service in support of our nation, whether in or out of uniform.

As I mentioned earlier, Mainers have a proud and storied tradition of service, from the Revolutionary and Civil Wars to present day.  You have fought and sacrificed for the ideals we hold sacred—life, liberty, freedom of choice, and the pursuit of happiness.

You have done so to preserve peace and advance prosperity around the globe.  At this time, I would ask that our Veterans in the audience to stand and be recognized for their service.

These Veterans are your classmates, your teachers, your friends. They are a part of your community—a community they committed themselves to defending.

For me personally, I chose to serve for 26 years in uniform as a Surface Warfare Officer in the Navy because this nation took my family in when we had nowhere else to go as we fled Castro’s dictatorship in Cuba.

And I answered the call of our country again in 2021 when I assumed office as the Secretary of the Navy, and with it the responsibility for leading the nearly one million Sailors, Marines, and civilian employees of the Department of the Navy stationed around the globe, supported by a budget in excess of $255 billion.

The opportunities I have been afforded throughout my life, from undergraduate and graduate education to positions of increasing leadership, were all made possible because of my decision to serve our Nation, both as an officer and as a civilian.

And those same opportunities are available to all of you in this room.

Now, how you choose to serve is up to you, and there are no shortages of careers supporting our Navy and Marine Corps here in Maine.

To the south of where we are gathered here this evening is Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, where we have a need for civilian employees across skilled trades, engineering, security, health and safety, environmental protection, radiological monitoring, and child and youth programs.

To the north of us is Bath Ironworks, where General Dynamics builds the warships of our fleet, carrying on a proud tradition of New England shipbuilding.

And if you are looking for a change of scenery, we are proud to offer dozens of occupational specialties as a uniformed Sailor or Marine, providing you with the opportunity to serve in uniform as part of the world’s greatest Navy-Marine Corps team.

Service to our nation is more than just a job, it is an honorable and noble profession—one where you are a part of something greater than yourself, contributing to the advancement of our Nation, and indeed the world.

It is incumbent upon all of us that we consider how we can best lend our talents and, in the case of the graduates before us, their newly-developed skills, to build up our great nation for all Americans, and defend them against the threats and challenges of today.

To quote Colonel Joshua Chamberlain, who was a native Mainer, a professor at Bowdoin College, and a hero of Gettysburg during the Civil War, “The inspiration of a noble cause enables men and women to do things they did not dream themselves capable of before.”

YCCC graduates of the Class of 2024, I invite you all to join us in a noble cause, whether it be in uniform, as a Department of the Navy civilian, or working for a defense firm in the private sector that supports our Sailors, Marines, and their families.

You have the skills, the talents, and the leadership qualities we need to ensure our Navy and Marine Corps remain ready to defend our Nation, and we hope that you will join us when you feel called to do so.

Again, it is an honor to with you and your families tonight to mark this incredible achievement.

Congratulations again, and may God Bless you, your families, this school, and our Nation. Thank you.