Tony Nicely, Chairman and CEO of GEICO, speaks during the 2016 Winter Graduation afternoon ceremony at the Fairfax Campus. Photo by Evan Cantwell.
(Remarks as prepared for delivery)
Good afternoon. President Cabrera, Rector Davis, Visitors, members of the faculty, graduates and honored guests: It is a great privilege and honor for me to be with you today.
Congratulations to members of the George Mason University Winter Graduation Class of 2016.
It is a great achievement that you have earned your degree from this most prestigious university.
In the past 50 years, this university – your university – has grown to become the largest university in Virginia.
It is also one of the top public research universities in the entire country.
Your degree from George Mason University is recognized for the excellence of the George Mason faculty and the rigorous course work it represents. You’ll find your diploma is highly valued far beyond this campus.
Today may well be one of the most important and exciting days of your life.
I am humbled and honored to have the opportunity to share this graduation ceremony with you.
Please allow me to reflect for a moment on my 55-year career at Geico and what I’ve learned during that time.
While George Mason University was carving out its formidable history, I was beginning my adventure as well.
Looking back, I have just a few thoughts for your consideration.
I’ve found that many times life has a way of taking you in a direction you never considered. In other words, don’t be surprised if your future takes you to a different career than you planned or perhaps even to a different part of the world. Keep an open mind to doing something that you may never had considered.
As a youth in rural Allegheny County, Virginia, I always thought that my education and career would be as a civil engineer. I thought I’d be working outdoors, putting up bridges and buildings.
After all, I was a country boy and I wanted to be outside.
After my first year of college, I was out of money and in debt and I needed what I thought would be a temporary job.
Luckily I found that “temporary job” at Geico.
I almost left numerous times during my first few years with the company because some other jobs paid considerably more money.
Frankly, in those early years it was not great vision or foresight on my part, but fate that kept me at Geico.
As I matured, I began to realize that insurance is a great business that is necessary for commerce and individuals. It will always be needed in society.
I also came to realize that Geico was a unique, successful company with a bright future and i wanted to be part of that future.
I count my blessings every day that I stayed at Geico all these years. I love my company and its people.
Hopefully that’s how you’ll feel one day about your career and life decisions.
Believe me, life goes by like the proverbial twinkling of an eye. Look carefully as you imagine the years ahead. I hope you see yourself doing work that really matters to you.
And as you look to your future, here are some friendly thoughts for your consideration.
Whatever you decide to do with your education, most importantly you should seek to do what brings you great satisfaction and for which you have genuine passion.
My formula for happiness and fulfillment is simple:
Find something that is worth doing, that benefits society, and that you will truly enjoy doing. Then find an organization that you will be proud to work for and love the people you’ll be working with.
That’s how I learned to define success. You will discover your own definition in time.
Every person seeks success but success rarely comes without happiness.
In other words, I believe success and happiness are joined and cannot be separated.
There may be times in your career journey when you’ll be discouraged or disappointed, but don’t give up.
Courage and perseverance are two essential qualities to build success and happiness.
I was lucky to have been born into a family where I had outstanding parents and grandparents.
To this day my father and grandfather are still the two men that I respect most of all the men I’ve ever met.
Even though they never reached high positions, they loved the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad.
Between them they devoted 95 years of service to that company. They lived lives of the highest character and they were the go-to people in their community. I could not have admired them more.
During my youth, I had an opportunity to spend a lot of time with my grandfather. This was in the 1940s and the early 1950s.
Young boys have a way of getting into mischief … and frankly, just plain screwing up.
On several separate occasions after one of those events, my grandfather followed up with a teaching opportunity that I didn’t fully understand at the time but I never forgot.
In fact, there were four lessons that stood out in my mind that helped guide me along the way.
First – my grandfather drilled into me the idea that to be successful in life, you must earn the trust of others.
To do that you must try your level best not to do anything, say anything or put yourself in a position where someone will question your honesty, your integrity or your proper motivation.
If you are perceived to be untrustworthy, it is impossible to gain the respect of others.
Your reputation is the most valuable thing you will ever own. Protect it always because if you lose it you may never fully regain it.
Second – you must be your own best critic and motivator.
Do things the right way, not because someone else will critique you, but because you expect more of yourself than anyone else.
Never allow others to expect more of you than you expect of yourself. If you do, you are probably already losing.
Third – my grandfather was a very wise man. He said be willing to work harder than anyone else to achieve your goals, but at the same time, be willing to give credit to others even if you know sometime you deserve it more.
This will come back to you time and again as a mark of your character.
Remember this: others will ultimately determine your success. Being a team player is essential for leadership.
Fourth – he reminded me regularly to develop a strong intellectual curiosity and to build a vast storehouse of knowledge that is wide and deep … so that you can be “lucky.” Never stop learning.
When he talked about being lucky, I started carrying around a rabbit’s foot and looking for four-leaf clovers.
Later I realized he was telling me that luck comes from preparation and being able to recognize opportunities as soon as they present themselves, not carrying around lucky charms.
Some of my “luck” was learning how all the moving parts work in a very complex industry. I also consider myself lucky to have learned from the ground floor up.
It’s kind of a cliché, but a lot of people do start at the bottom and work their way up as I did.
My first job at Geico was as an entry level endorsement clerk. The people at Geico were great and helped me learn quickly.
I was so eager to learn more, and it must have showed. My curiosity is what drove me further and further into the inner workings of a very complex business.
I moved up step by step as I learned more and more as an underwriting clerk … underwriter … and then underwriting manager.
I must confess that while I wanted to grow and become successful, not even in my wildest dreams did I imagine becoming an officer, let alone the CEO of the company.
But in time I was in charge of a number of underwriting operations and became an assistant vice president.
Later I was put in charge of one of our regions as a vice president.
I kept learning the whole time.
To my surprise in 1993, the board of directors named me president, chairman and CEO. I must emphasize here that it was the hard work, commitment, loyalty and dedication of thousands of fellow associates that made that possible. Yes, others do ultimately determine your success.
Insurance is a fascinating business. I’ve never been bored, especially now that we have nearly 36,000 associates across the country who, are serving close to 15 million customers.
We are all busy learning every day at Geico as to how we can make our customers’ lives a little easier.
Looking back, I have lived through an unbelievable period in our nation’s history. As a youngster in the 1940s, we couldn’t swim in the rivers because polio was such a real threat.
We couldn’t imagine organ transplants. We couldn’t imagine computers, cell phones or the internet. We couldn’t imagine astronauts going to the moon.
We couldn’t imagine being able to map a chromosome. Or that one person could possibly win 23 gold medals in the Olympics. And who could imagine the Chicago Cubs would win the World Series?
That’s how much the world has changed just in recent times.
So I fully expect that you will be working in even more exciting times in the next 40 to 50 years.
Even now technology is already stepping up the pace to produce self-driving cars, and NASA is preparing a mission to mars which isn’t really that far off and IBM’s Watson is having a huge impact on health care.
Because you have worked hard to get an excellent education and a coveted degree from George Mason University, you will be leaders in the most exciting times we have yet to see.
Changes will come at ever-increasing speeds and you will help create those changes and learn from them.
As you begin your journey may the sun light your path and the wind always be at your back.
I wish you much happiness and a full measure of success.
Happy holidays and godspeed.