Thank you. I am genuinely delighted to find myself this evening in a gathering of engineers. You know from my introduction that I have shared and enjoyed similar company in more than one of my past lives.

I spent my active duty years in the Navy as an attorney, with my office aboard an aircraft carrier, cruising off Vietnam. Let me assure you, everyone who has served on a ship of the line knows and appreciates engineers. I have particular knowledge, because I bunked directly beneath the catapult!

After my years in Congress, I was privileged to serve as Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, with responsibility for the Army Corps of Engineers. Yes, the Corps is part and parcel of the Army; but what it really is, is the world's largest engineering firm. My tenure there was both professionally challenging and personally satisfying.

As much as I enjoyed my time with the professionals in the Corps, I did not come prepared tonight to swap stories about flood control, bridges, levees, roadbuilding and the other vital tasks that are your daily concerns as professional engineers.

My perspective today is as President of the North Carolina Community College System. I have been privileged to serve in that capacity for almost four years now. Of all of the wonderful experiences that I have had in previous occupations, this is the most challenging and most rewarding.

One of the biggest challenges in that job so far has been working on a massive project that is likely very familiar to many of you -- the successful campaign to pass the higher education bonds. In November, North Carolina voters said "yes" to $3.1 billion dollars for construction, repair and renovation at public universities and community colleges. That is a staggering amount of money -- and it took a staggering amount of work to convince the General Assembly to put it before the public for a vote, and to persuade voters to support it. With vital leadership from business and industry, from the General Assembly and from then Governor Hunt, community college and university supporters joined hands to make the case for investment in the facilities essential to provide top-notch education and training.

Our unofficial motto for five months was "wherever two or more are gathered, the bond will be discussed." Our community college presidents, university chancellors; their faculties, staff, students and alumni; and our supporters in business and industry, including many of you, worked tirelessly to educate voters on our needs and how these funds will be used.

If you're like the engineers I knew in the Corps, you want to see the numbers before you decide how well a project works….and the numbers in November leave no room for doubt. More than 73 percent of the voters said YES to the bonds. All 100 counties said YES…and the LOWEST approval rate was 60 percent. This was the largest statewide bond referendum in North Carolina history, and the largest statewide bond vote for higher education ever held in the country.

The community college system's share of the bond total is $600 million. How much of a difference will that make to us? Consider this….with that one vote, the people of North Carolina authorized $100 million more in state capital funds than the community colleges have received from the state for facilities since our system was founded almost forty years ago.

All of our bond money will go for construction, renovation and repair at our 59 institutions. The need for this bond money is very real. Our community college system was established in 1963. In 1963, a fairly small percentage of North Carolinians attended college, and only a portion of those chose community colleges.

In 2001, the economy and education have changed dramatically. As you know better than most, many more jobs demand education beyond high school than did forty years ago. Our big industries are shifting to high-tech. Community college programs that train our people for these good high-tech jobs are increasingly expensive. We are looking at an increased enrollment in community colleges of 58,000 by the end of the decade.

The money from the bonds will help us have space for the labs and classrooms those students must have…and very importantly, the money will help us make sure that those labs and classrooms house cutting-edge technology and equipment.

Many of you probably have direct interest in participating in the planning and construction of these facilities. Rest assured that the individual colleges are cranking out their project plans as fast as they can, and the State Board of Community Colleges puts them on the fast track for review as soon as they come in.

The bond money will be issued over the next 6 years. The first portion of the bond money is available in the amount of $48.4 million and projects are unrolling now. The amounts for subsequent years are $58.1 million for 2002, $116.1 million for 2003; $116.1 million for 2004; $135.5 million for 2005; and $125.8 million for 2006. The system office staff under the guidance of Kennon Briggs have developed detailed information about cash flow needs for each fiscal year as well as timelines for construction. All of this is public information; if you need it and don't have it, check our website, call the office, or ask.

Whether you work on any of these projects, however, you and your firms have a vested interest in the growth and quality of the North Carolina Community College System.

After all, our system came into being primarily to serve the needs of business and industry, and we hold firmly to workforce training and economic development as our primary missions.

Without engineers and the technicians who support them, there is no industry. Community colleges train thousands of North Carolinians each year in technologies related to engineering. The catalogue lists 19 different engineering technologies programs, and that's just the programs offered for credit. We have a full range of continuing education courses, too. While it is true that most of our students come to us with a goal of completing a two-year technical degree, some enroll intending to transfer into a university-level School of Engineering. I'm pleased that pre-engineering programs and strong transfer relationships with North Carolina State, North Carolina A and T and UNC-Charlotte continue to provide an open door for talented students who choose this path.

A sample of our engineering-related programs includes Civil Engineering Technology, Architectural Technology, Landscape Architecture Technology and exciting new curricula in Geographic Information Systems/Global Positioning Systems Technology, Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Virtual Instruments. Our fastest growing engineering programs in terms of enrollment are Computer Engineering Technology and Telecommunications and Network Engineering Technology. However, these and other engineering-related programs can't grow fast enough to meet escalating demand because we just don't have space. Now we have the chance to build the space we need and equip it to to the training you demand, for top performance in your field.

Our state…and our community college system…face a future of limitless opportunity…as well as challenge. Had I spoken to you last year at this time, I would have talked about the need for the bonds, as we invest in the resources to keep our powerful economic engine humming.

Today, we've heard the engine cough a few times, and maybe sputter a bit. Did we expect that? Well, maybe a little, but not to the extent that we've heard and seen so far. Does that mean we should hold back on using these bond funds and see what's around the corner instead?

Absolutely not. The voters spoke…no, they SHOUTED…to us in November…that they understood that an investment in higher education right now is the foundation of our future.

They are demanding that we go forward. And in their message, I hear an echo of powerful words of almost four decades ago, when our community college system was just beginning.

Terry Sanford was Governor then, and he proposed the North Carolina Community College System in his 1963 State-of-the-State speech to the General Assembly. The words he used are as fresh today as they were then:

"You will hear some whisperings abroad saying that we have done enough, have moved well and far and rapidly, and so it is time now to slow down, rest, and catch our breath.

These whispers come from the fearful and those who have always opposed the accomplishments from which they now would rest. This cannot be and is not the spirit of North Carolina.

Much remains to be done, to provide better educational opportunities for the competition our children will surely face, to encourage broader economic development so everybody will have a better chance to make a better living. Now is the time to move forward. Now is no time to loaf along."

Thank you.