Please join me in welcoming Melinda French Gates.
Thank you, President Saller, and good morning class of 2024.
It is such an honor to be here with you and your families on this truly happy occasion.
Today is the day you graduate from Stanford University and that is an amazing accomplishment.
Stanford has always held a special place in my family's heart.
My dad, Ray French, received a scholarship to study mechanical engineering here in 1960, and while he worked on his master's degree, my mother, Elaine French, supported them with her job at a bottled water company.
And on nights and weekends, she was my dad's lab assistant.
There's an old photo I love of my mom, pregnant with my sister, standing next to the wind tunnel in the engineering lab with a clipboard and a stopwatch.
Today, my mom and dad are back on campus for a very special occasion, to watch their granddaughter, Phoebe, graduate from the university that changed my dad's life.
And Phoebe is not the only one to follow in his footsteps.
