Thank you, Chairman Woody. That's a great summary of what community colleges are doing right now to give our people hope in difficult economic times. I would like to carry that idea through to what we need to do, in partnership with all our friends here, to create a prosperous future.

I'll begin with a quote from an editorial that ran last week in the News and Observer of Raleigh. The headline, slightly paraphrased, was:

The editorial was prompted by the Emerging Issues Forum, one of the great services North Carolina State University provides our state. Many of you were probably there to hear the inspiring presentations about the economy that our state must build, together. The News and Observer described that economy this way:

"It demands and properly rewards creativity, the kind found among the most skillful and best-educated 'knowledge workers.' And it's a borderless economy in which companies can use creative talent anywhere in the world they find it. Increasingly, manufacturers also can find cheaper unskilled labor elsewhere. North Carolina can no longer compete on that level, and for the sake of its children, from the mountains to the coast, it shouldn't try. Young people deserve their chance at well-paying jobs offered by an economy that runs on creativity -- on brains more than brawn."

To that powerful statement, I would add the opinion that all people--not just young ones!--deserve the chance to participate in the economy of innovation and creativity. Where do community colleges fit into this vision?

Certainly, we know that many of the products of the new economy come from the "big science" of university and industrial research. How fortunate we are in North Carolina to have such a concentration of world-class research institutions.

Our state is also blessed to have in the community colleges the capacity to teach our citizens the job skills they need to make those products -- solid academics, technical skills and most importantly, the habit of lifelong learning. We have 59 institutions now enrolling 800,000 adults every year. We have four decades of experience in connecting with industry, making sure the workforce is ready for change, and providing the training and retraining whenever and wherever it is needed.

It is true that much of that experience has been gained as part of the great success North Carolina has enjoyed for many years in luring big companies from elsewhere. We must keep those efforts up, and the community college system must find new ways to focus strongly on building business from the ground up.

Part of that focus is making sure that our community colleges offer the right courses and programs, in the right places, to support the manufacture of the exciting new products coming out of the research labs. Another part is making sure that our partnerships with secondary schools and public and private universities work the way they are supposed to. We need to know, for example, if College Tech Prep is moving high school students smoothly into community colleges, and then into the workplace with real job skills and real JOBS. We need to know if the college transfer students are succeeding not only at the university, but later in winning good jobs with strong futures.

Another important part of building business is a new emphasis on the front-line work community colleges do in small business development. All 58 of our comprehensive community colleges have small business centers, dedicated to helping entrepreneurs take their great ideas into the marketplace.

Those ideas don't have to come from big science, to make a big impact on individuals and communities.

One of the most passionate speakers at the Emerging Issues Forum was Ernesto Sorelli, who works with entrepreneurs around the world. He was quoted as saying:

"Right now, in your community, this very minute, somebody is dreaming how to improve his lot or her lot, and she's scribbling figures on her kitchen table in solitude. If you could help this woman, you could change the economic fortune of the entire community."

It's easy to find examples of that kind of person-to-person, step-by-step change all across our state. In Brunswick County, a couple dreamed of opening a bookshop specializing in old books. They went to the Small Business Center at Brunswick Community College to learn the nuts and bolts. They also learned that thanks to the Internet, their boutique business could be a global player. Now they ship rare books all over the world.

In the clay country where Moore, Randolph and Montgomery Counties connect, potters have made beautiful things by hand for centuries. Twenty-five years ago, if you knew where to look, you could find twenty or so potters, supplying a few shops. Then Montgomery Community College hired an exceptionally talented potter who understood both the art and business of his craft, established a pottery curriculum and, with many partners, fostered the idea that a traditional craft could become a major industry. Have you been to Seagrove lately and tried to visit the more than 100 studios and more than 300 full-time potters clustered along the new Interstate corridor? You have to spend a week, to make a dent!

Last week in Alamance County, we celebrated with great fanfare the creation of a similar number of jobs with a groundbreaking for a major expansion of Honda Power Equipment. We need to always celebrate the jobs created by small business that often go unrecognized.

Here in the Yadkin Valley, North Carolina has earned its first official appellation as an American wine-producing region. You will hear this afternoon about the extraordinary partnership between Surry Community College and the Shelton Vineyards. It is difficult to imagine a more creative response to drastic economic shifts in a rural economy.

"Creative" is the key word. We know that changing times demand that our graduates be creative. As leaders, we must always expect the same creativity of ourselves, as we confront the realities of governance, structures and budgets. Let me close with a phrase I heard at a meeting of the Southern Growth Policies Board last year. A speaker there quoted Paul Valery, a French poet of the last century, who wrote memorably: "The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be."  To that wisdom I add that the glory of our times is that the future will be what we create together.

Thank you.