News & Events 2006-2007

Baccalaureate Speech
Speaker: William Hammer, Director of Choral Music

My dear seniors, parents, and faculty. First of all, I would like to take a moment and sincerely thank you for choosing me as this year’s speaker. I mean, why WOULDN’T I want to be the one to try and wrap up your four years at Blair in a speech that is meaningful, witty, and ABOVE ALL, memorable? Who WOULDN’T want to give a formal talk in front of your highly educated, UBER-successful parents, many of whom are used to giving public addresses? And besides, I don’t feel pressure knowing that anything short of Dane Cook will be disappointing. So THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!

And now we begin the part of my speech that I like to call “Hey Hammer, we picked you because you’re usually funny…now make us laugh, CLOWN!!!” I am well aware that you did not pick me for my theological convictions or deep insights on universal truths. In fact, you may have picked me to stay as far away from that stuff as possible. So let us now embark on an oratorical journey that MAY change your lives forever….or may not even be a blip on your “life-changing speeches” radar screen.

You seniors sit here having completed four years of a high school education. Many of you completed all four at Blair while others might have started their high school years at other schools, some of which may have been….I might get fired for using this word…..(whisper) PUBLIC SCHOOLS!!! Where are my public school kids? (make P sign)

I feel a real connection with you seniors right now. Do you know why? Is it because we all love to beat Peddie? No. Is it because we all love formal dinner? Well…..NO and AGAIN I SAY NO! It is because we are all about to start an exciting new phase of our lives. YOU, my friends, will all graduate tomorrow morning and begin your college careers in September at your chosen academic institutions.
I like to call this OPERATION: GET A REAL JOB SOMEDAY. However, some of you may prefer to embark on OPERATION: FRANK THE TANK, or OPERATION: POOR DECISIONS THAT MAKE ME GIGGLE, or the ever popular UNDERGRADUATE WAS THE BEST SIX YEARS OF MY LIFE!!! I, on the other hand, start a new phase of my life that will begin when I get married in a little over a month to the woman of my dreams whose lack of good judgment will hopefully cause her to say “I do” on June 30th. I like to call this OPERATION SUGAR DADDY.

There is not much that we can guarantee for the next few years of our lives. I can’t promise you a high-paying job at the end of your degree or promise that you will find your true calling. If that were the case, Blair would be able to charge a lot more than $37,000 a year. But I CAN promise that you will be absolutely BOMBARDED with a plethora of decisions on a daily basis at college. I know what you’re thinking. “You HAD to try and talk about serious life issues. You’re soft, Hammer, SOFT!!!” And I concur.

Now, seniors sit back and imagine with me for a moment. Feel free to close your eyes in those seats for one last time. Imagine that you are now an undergraduate student at your chosen academic institution. You have just finished your first week of classes. You don’t feel completely settled yet but have found comfort in the few friends that you have met during orientation, in preseason practices, or at the local Starbucks because of your passion for ORANGE MOCHA FRAPPACINOS. It is Friday night in your college town and you feel a sense of pride in having finished one week of college. You decide to hang out with your new friends and you all DECIDE to do what all college students do on a Friday night...play SCRABBLE, eat some pizza, and crack open a couple of cold……Frescas.

You and your new friends share a delightful game of scrabble and you enjoy the fact that you managed to use the word “marsupial” in one round because MARSUPIAL is a GREAT word that we DON’T USE NEARLY enough. You lay in bed, disoriented from the Fresca, and are ready for a restful night’s sleep when you have one of the greatest moments of your young life. You realize that YOU WILL NEVER HAVE CLASS ON A SATURDAY AGAIN!!! Enjoy that moment because it only happens once!

Now let’s get to the part of my speech I like to call “Those of you who only wanted funny stuff may mentally check out……..NOW”.

I would like to talk to you about someone who is the latest addition to my “HERO” list. Joining the Hammer Hero List puts him in the elite company of my parents, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, and Hugh Hefner…or should I say “Hef”….or “puffin” for you “Girls Next Door” fans.

One of my new heroes happens to be one of the richest men in the world at a net worth of $52 billion. (That really speaks volumes about my character, doesn’t it?) He is the Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, an insurance company that owns many subsidiaries including Dairy Queen and Geico. And if you don’t love Dairy Queen or you don’t love Geico commercials, WE NEED TO TALK! This man was recently in the news because he decided to give away 85% of his net worth to charity. Do you know who this man is?...................Yes, WARREN BUFFETT.

Buffett, interestingly enough, is one of the few people on the Forbes Billionaire List that made his ENTIRE fortune in the stock market. He is widely regarded as the greatest investor of all time. Warren Buffett has not changed for more than 50 years. He still lives in the same house in Omaha, Nebraska that he bought in 1958 for $31,500. He still loves to eat hamburgers and drink Cherry Coke. And his investment philosophy has essentially remained unchanged since he was in his 20s.
Here is his investment philosophy in a nutshell: He invests in GREAT COMPANIES at a PRICE THAT LEAVES A MARGIN OF SAFETY and HE HOLDS THEM FOR A LONG TIME.

It’s so simple. So why did Warren Buffett make more money than anyone else in the financial world? Warren Buffett made most of his money from a FEW BRILLIANT DECISIONS that he backed with a huge portion of his net worth. These decisions account for much of his fortune. If you take away the five best investment decisions he has made since 1950, his investment record would be average.

Buffett has mastered the art of compounding his money. Compounding is the idea of investing money and growing it at, say, 10% per year, then that money grows 10% the following year, and so on. NOW HOW MANY OF YOU EXPECT TO RECEIVE GRADUATION PRESENTS? RAISE YOUR HAND! BE PROUD!

(To the parents) And you thought that paying for a private school education was enough. I’m terribly sorry.

But back to gifts. Now let’s say that you received $1000 in graduation gifts because you have a huge, generous family. You decide to invest this $1000 in the stock market. In the investment world, 10% annual growth of your investment is GOOD, 15% is GREAT, and over 20% is OUTSTANDING. Now if you invested $1000 of your graduation gift money and it grew 10% per year, how much would it be worth when you retire at 65? $81,197.49 Now, what if you invested that $1000 and instead of it growing 10% per year, it grew 15% per year. How much would it be worth when you are 65? $712,522.36 Whoa, now that’s a HUGE jump from the $81,000 that 10% gave you and you haven’t invested a dollar more. But let’s go one step further. Because of his OUTSTANDING decision-making abilities, Warren Buffett has been able to compound his money at about 22% per year for the last 50 plus years. What would that make your 1000 bucks worth when you retire? $11,452,809.63 Not a bad return on $1000, huh?

So what does compounding have to do with your lives? Well, let’s talk about compounding in terms of decisions. Decisions, both good and bad, tend to compound over time. GOOD decisions could make the “value” of our lives grow at 10% a year. GREAT decisions could make the value of our lives increase by 15% a year and OUTSTANDING decisions could make the value of our lives grow by over 20% a year. If you only look over a short time horizon of four years, you may not see a huge difference in the results between good decisions and great or outstanding decisions. However, when you extend the time horizon to ten or twenty years, the difference between the results is ASTRONOMICAL.

A SINGLE DECISION can set off a string of utterly MIRACULOUS events that one could NEVER have envisioned. I have experienced this magic firsthand.

After I graduated high school, I was headed off to Hofstra University to be an international business major. That summer, however, I decided to attend a summer choral conducting workshop because one of my best friends begged me to come with him. My reason for going was to hang out with him and to check out the girls involved in the school’s high school vocal institute. At the time, I didn’t think much about this decision. The teacher of that class quickly awakened my love of music that week and soon became my musical mentor….or as I call him my musical YODA. Within a year, I had changed majors from INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS to MUSIC EDUCATION, and transferred schools. One decision a year out, slightly different result.

Upon the completion of my undergraduate degree in 2003, I decided to attend the University of Michigan for my master’s. During my first year, I had the chance to work on a world premiere recording of a piece that one of the U-M music faculty had written. This recording went on to win a total of four Grammy Awards in 2006. A few more decisions out, pretty different result.

During my last semester at U-M, I decided to take the Blair job over a university job that all of my teachers supported. Every one of my mentors told me to take the college job and one was even so bold as to tell me, "You are a FOOL if you don’t take the college job!” Well, I made the fool’s choice for two reasons. One, I felt at home here. And two, my meeting with Mr. Hardwick really made an impact on me. I mean, (slowly)……
I had never been so UTTERLY DOMINATED in a handshake as when Mr. Hardwick and I shook for the first time. It was if cosmic forces collided when we shook hands.
And PS, Blair eventually lead me to my future wife. A few more decisions out, a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT RESULT!


So in summary, one decision to take a summer music class took me from a business major who couldn’t even read music to a soon-to-be-happily married two-time Grammy Award winner in only NINE YEARS!!! I assure you that the point of this is not to toot my own horn but rather to present you with a few questions. Could I have pictured my life as it is today when I graduated high school? Not in a million years. Does this match up with my goals that I set back in 1998? No, in fact I would seem like an UTTER FAILURE if not for the getting married as I don’t see international business or a $250,000 annual salary coming my way….or DO I, MR. HARDWICK?

How do we make decisions that we later find out to have been GOOD, GREAT, or even OUTSTANDING decisions?
That’s a tough question. That would take a long time to teach and, frankly, I certainly would not be the best teacher as I have a LONG way to go on my decision-making journey. But let me tell you what I DO know and I’ll make it really concise. Decisions come from WHO YOU ARE, like it or not. WHO WE ARE makes decisions for us. So the question is not WHAT SHOULD I DO but rather WHO DO I WANT TO BE? Regardless of what career you choose for your life, who you are will always affect what your choices.

Be someone that YOU can proud of being and good decisions will always follow. Whether your decisions compound at 10%, 15%, or 20% depends on whether you choose to be GOOD, GREAT, or OUTSTANDING.

In closing…cue shuffling of papers or shifting in chairs….I hope that you seniors follow Mr. Buffett’s investing philosophy and…

INVEST IN GREAT COMPANIES….Translation: do something that is worthwhile with your life and surround yourself with great people that you admire…

AT A PRICE THAT YOU LIKE….what price are YOU willing to pay for what you truly desire in life?

....and EXPECT TO HOLD THOSE COMPANIES FOR A LONG TIME…don’t measure your success in months or even years because great results take time.

I challenge you to make a few really brilliant decisions in your lifetime, even if completely by accident, and ride the success of them for the rest of your life.

Enjoy tomorrow, you summer, and your lifetime ahead. I SINCERELY wish you all much success, but more importantly, much HAPPINESS in your lives. THANK YOU.

— William Hammer

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Posted 5/29/07

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