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I am very, very excited today to be able to introduce our first speaker for the quarter.

His name is Professor Bill Perry. How many of you have had a chance to take a class with Professor Perry

at some point in your Stanford careers? We have a few who are lucky enough to do that, and the

rest of you are in for a big treat. My mom was so excited that I was going to be able to introduce Professor Perry today

because in addition to being a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute

and having joined appointments in the Engineering School and the International Relations Institute

here at Stanford, he had the honor to serve with great dignity in the role of Secretary of Defense for the United States.

And Mom was married to a career naval aviator and her son, the other son, the good son, became a career naval officer.

And I just ran away and joined the Marines and then went into civilian life.

But what we would say is in the cosmic household, this is the coolest speaker that we've

ever had at ETL. So Mom says, thank you, Professor Perry. Let's welcome Bill, not back

to Stanford because he's here all the time when he's not serving his country with distinction. Welcome

to ETL, Bill.

As you can see from the chart, the title of my talk today is, It's Your Ship.

And I will first of all explain what that strange title means.

When I was the Secretary of Defense, Mike Abershaw did a spectacular job for me as my military assistant. He then went on to

command a Nijis class destroyer. When he was captain of that ship, it won awards twice

as the best ship in the Pacific Fleet. This success resulted from a very un-military style of

leadership that Mike had. When a sailor assigned to do a job on the ship,

would approach Mike to ask him which of several alternatives he thought would be best.

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