GRADUATION
After graduating from Duke in 2005 and, as he reports, serving a quick stint at a karaoke bar, Cody came to the world of recruiting. Over the course of more than ten years he has shared recruiting insights at Talent42 Conference, LinkedIn, Silicon Valley Recruiter Association, RocketSpace, FounderWorld, and has organized Recruiting Roundtables. He seems to know what he’s doing. Cody founded RockIT recruiting in 2011 with a former college classmate. As their website states, “At RockIT, we want your career to take off! We are a startup ourselves, helping other Bay Area startups build and grow their engineering teams. Simply put, RockIT values: relationships over transactions, quality over quantity, attention to detail, and being a valued part of the startup ecosystem.” These days, Cody says he loves babies, headbands and BBQ, and doesn’t have time for much else… Fortunately, he was able to make time to come back to TJ to talk to us. Now, please join me in welcoming back to TJ Cody Voellinger.
Commencement Address By Cody Voellinger ‘01 TJ grads of 2017, the 62nd [sic] class in TJ history.* Or somewhere thereabouts, math was never my strong suit… and poor Mr. Rowe had to try to teach me calculus, the only C I’ve ever gotten in my life, thanks Mr. Rowe. Ok, back to the graduates, today is all about you. Congratulations! You did it! Round of applause. Not a small feat for an 18y/o. You have written roughly 1k O.R.s, translated
12 |
the tj review
thousands of lines of the Aeneid and Odyssey in ancient Latin and Greek. Memorized hundreds of lines of Shakespearean prose. All the while, striving everyday for Perfection, the elusive 0. My precious. Because a single error regardless of the magnitude will drop your grade 10%... think about that. That is character shaping.
So yes, you are special, and congratulations, today is about you. FYI, I’m not planning on giving a typical Grad Speech. But I also don’t want you to feel cheated because you got some old guy making Dad jokes as your speaker. On that note, DJ, I was going to tell a Chemistry joke, but I was afraid I wouldn’t get a reaction… (Yep, just as I suspected.) So let’s cover our Grad Speech advice bases: there is life after TJ; the world is a big exciting place, so don’t be afraid to try new things and you might even fail along the way, but that’s ok; things may not work out exactly as you planned, but that’s ok; there will be ups and downs, but all you can do is be a good person. Is there anything that I missed? Okay, ‘17 graduates now you are ready to take
on the world, congratulations! As I prepared for this speech, I realized I am the oldest ever alumni commencement speaker, and so I have one unique perspective that I bring-- I am a parent. For you grads who may or may not have this experience yet, I’ll let you in on something, having a kid changes your perspective of everything that has happened or will happen. You develop a new level of respect for the support network that is behind every individual achievement. So at the ripe age of 35, if there is one thing that I wish I had learned earlier, it is to appreciate all of the sacrifices those around me made to get me here. Speaking of me, I’m shocked that I’m up here, and particularly shocked that it was Miss Fairbank who nominated me. Throughout my tenure at TJ and for over a decade after, I would describe Miss Fairbank as my nemesis (which in classical mythology is the goddess of divine retribution). I think she is still looking for retribution from the great pizza heist of ’99. And perhaps this is still part of Miss Fairbank’s maniacal plan? (Maybe she knew that with a 2y/o and another baby on the way I wouldn’t have any time to write this speech, or maybe I’m standing on a trap door…) W I N T E R
2017-2018