Reflections on Success William Kennard

It is tough in these days of burdensome student loans and lucrative corporate salaries to advise a college graduate to consider public service, but I hope you will consider serving the people for at least some part of your career. Even if you do not work directly for the public, you can apply your profession in public ways that will help others.

The reasons to consider public service are basic: the need is great; the work is challenging and rewarding; and someone did the same for you. Instead of maximizing their earning power, someone took the time to raise you and provide the community services and institutions of learning to help you get started. All of us stand on the shoulders of many, and it is our task, and honor, to provide the shoulders for those who follow us. I learned these lessons from my parents. My mother was a schoolteacher, and my father was an architect who designed community buildings.

{Recently, I worked} on issues important to large economic forces, but I also work{ed} to bring the Internet to schools, and telephones to Indian reservations, and these projects give me great satisfaction. The challenges of public service often end up in the headlines. They end up in the headlines because they matter, because they are important to millions of people. I have always enjoyed jobs that require me to keep up with the news, because I like knowing that the public's business is my business.

Your first obligation, of course, is to yourself - to maintain your physical and financial health, and to care for those you love. But let your job pay the rent, while your life's work pays the soul. It is, after all, a proud tradition: W.E.B. DuBois, Martin Luther King, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Andrew Young. When you travel the sometimes bumpy roads of public service, you travel among giants.

William Kennard is the former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.