Thank you, President Callahan. Thank you, Congressman Harder, Assemblymember Ransom, Chair Eberhardt and members of the Board of Regents, alumni, donors, faculty, staff, and friends for being here this morning.

Today is not just a University of the Pacific milestone. It’s a Central Valley milestone.

In 2030, the University of the Pacific will open a School of Medicine right here in Stockton.

For decades, our families have paid the price for that gap — in longer wait times, in preventable illness, and in young people who leave home to train as doctors and never come back.

That ends now.

John A. Shedd said, “A ship is perfectly safe in the harbor, but that is not what a ship is designed for.” Pacific was not designed to play it safe. We were designed to meet the greatest needs of California. And right now, there is no greater need than training physicians for the Valley, in the Valley.

I know this need because I’ve lived it. I was born in Burma.  I grew up in abject poverty in Burma.  My dad died when I was 5, because he did not have access to medical care. He got sick and could not get simple medication.  My mom was left a widow with seven children—six girls and one boy.  I never want another family to go through what happened to us—just because they cannot access medical care.   My family came to this country with nothing.

As a teenager, I worked every blue-collar job I could find in a hospital — mopping floors, changing linens, pushing patients to X-ray at 3 a.m. I saw what happens on the night shift when there aren’t enough doctors. I saw families wait. I saw nurses carry burdens they shouldn’t have to carry alone. And I promised myself: if I ever got a chance to change that, I would.

Pacific gave me that chance. The Thomas J. Long School of Pharmacy didn’t just teach me chemistry. It taught me I belonged. It taught me this Valley rewards people who work hard and tell the truth. Virginia and I met here at Pacific. We built our pharmacies in Southern California, but our children graduated here. For nearly 50 years, this University — and the Stockton community — has been our home, our patients, and our purpose.

And we’ve seen what Pacific can do when it commits. Fifteen years ago, I advocated to this Board for a Physician Assistant program. People doubted the Valley could sustain it. Today, Pacific-trained PAs are in clinics throughout Northern California , closing gaps in care every single day. That’s the model. In 2030 we open the MD program. In 2034 we deliver doctors.

To our Regents, alumni, and donors: this is the most ambitious academic project in Pacific’s 175-year history. It will take a new medical education complex, clinical partnerships, and philanthropy at a scale we’ve never seen. But good ethics doesn’t cost — it pays. It pays in public trust, in workforce retention, and in a medical school that will return value to this region for decades to come.

So we are not just building a medical school. We are building the kind of medical school the public deserves.

The whole Valley — and frankly, the whole Capitol — will be our jury. Taxpayers, patients, and families will judge us by how we steward this responsibility. That’s why our graduates will be trained in more than science. They will be trained in uncommon integrity.

I started in this Valley pushing a mop. Because people believed in me, I’m standing here today. This medical school is how we make sure the next kid mopping floors doesn’t have to leave the Valley to become a doctor. He or she can stay here. Learn here. Serve here.

As Audrey Hepburn said, "As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others." Today, the University of the Pacific is using both — one to build a great institution, and the other to lift up this Valley, this state, and this nation.

I ask you to join us. Thank you.