JIM FARLEY’S COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

JIM FARLEY’S COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY – MAY, 2026

Ford Motor Company’s Jim Farley, a Georgetown University alum, was invited to provide the commencement address to Georgetown graduates last Saturday, May 16^th. His remarks are below. And while these remarks depart from our traditional txGarage menu, we thought them appropriate to the season…and the very real needs of our country. DB

Thank you, Interim President Groves, Interim Provost Colbert, Dean Edelstein, and to the parents and families of today’s graduates.  To you, Hoya graduates – take a moment to turn to your neighbor and share your congratulations with each other!   

Personally, I can’t imagine my life without the Hilltop, and I know many of 

you feel the same. Hold on tight to your Georgetown experiences and friends.    

I’m about as much a Hoya as you can get. I met my wife Lia here. 

My father, Jim Sr., was a Hoya – class of 1950. And he served on the Board of Georgetown with Lia’s dad, Joe Connor Jr. 

My Hoya crew remain among my most cherished friendships.  

We had our 40th reunion last year…and while we traded Old Milwaukee and Tab for wine and flavored water, we were still dancing to Madonna and the Clash like we did at the old pub. 

But my greatest Georgetown gift is my beautiful wife, Lia. She is the light of my life.  Looking at our children, and our wonderful life, I see her skill and grace as a mother and wife every day. 

I’d like to start today with a fun Hoya story. I had taken four years of intense Latin in high school. So, when I was a freshman I convinced my Latin professor to let me skip the classes and just come back for the midterm and final. He gave me a spot test, nodded, and told me, “Don’t worry about attending class everyday”.   

Two months later, on a Saturday, I received a letter in my mail slot from the 

Provost’s Office. I was to appear at an academic hearing the following week, to consider my expulsion from Georgetown – for not attending class regularly. 

I wrote a lengthy letter to the professor challenging his personal integrity – 

and I slipped it under his office door. Sunday night, I was in Lauinger, when one of my classmates came over to me. That academic integrity hearing? A big, fat practical joke thought up by one of my crew. Oh boy, was I pissed off – and relieved the threat of expulsion wasn’t real. Until I remembered the letter…

As much as I tried and tried, I could not fish that stupid letter out from under 

his office door with a bent hanger!  When he came to his office on Monday 

morning, there I was, leaned up against his door, sleeping.  I quickly snatched it from his office floor and scurried off – he must have 

thought I was a very strange Freshman!    

My junior year, I had the privilege of studying with the great Jan Karski.   

Professor Karski was a true hero to all of us. He was an underground 

leader in Poland who risked his life as a teenager to fight the Nazis, and 

then devoted his later years to teaching at Georgetown.  Some problems he faced were operational – how do you sneak into the Warsaw Ghetto to document and expose the murder of Polish Jews?  

And some were moral – how do you force the Allied governments to 

recognize and act on the atrocities he had witnessed before the end of the 

war?   

When he came to America after the war, he did not consider his mission 

completed. He spent his life making sure that later generations like us grappled not just with the crimes of the Nazis, but also the failure of the Allies to stop the Holocaust. He impressed upon all of us the importance of understanding each other. Professor Karski embodied the long inheritance of courage and problem solving that is at the heart of Georgetown. 

And this is my advice to you: learn to love solving problems.   

Seize the opportunity to fall in love with it – the fulfillment it will give you 

and how it will enable you to serve the people around you. I would never claim to have faced down the problems that Jan Karski did. But I learned a great deal from him about how to approach life.    

It turns out that I have always loved problem solving — the nastier, tricker, 

the more complex the better. Maybe that’s why I have always loved the 

Jesuit order and Jan Karski. This is why I was so lucky to go to Georgetown. Because problem solving is an acquired skill – from Georgetown and from the founder of the Jesuit order, St. Ignatius of Loyola.   

What you have learned here is the first down payment on a framework of 

how to approach the world. You might not even realize it yet – but that down payment is a huge asset to you. You will face hardship and thorny obstacles in your life, but these are opportunities – and Georgetown has given you the tools to seize them.  

St. Ignatius’s framework for solving problems focuses on 

discernment and reflection:  First, identify the issue. Next, pray for guidance. Finally, make the decision using your best judgement.  

The summer between my MBA years I worked at a finance firm in M&A. 

My dad was a banker – he was very proud. But I was miserable – the work was tedious and had little meaning for me. As I approached graduation, I knew something needed to change. I went back to St. Ignatius.  

Identify the problem. I’m not a banker, and I am bored out of my mind.   

Pray for guidance. I want to do something challenging – work that really 

has meaning for me. Final step. Make the decision. 

So, I decided to join Toyota –  a much smaller company in those years. 

Why Toyota? I thought the problem-solving at Toyota would be more 

rewarding. My job was to help start a little brand called Lexus – a totally new company – which was a rare opportunity back then.  So, I solved my problem by looking for new problems to solve. Seriously, I am a problem-solving junkie! And what an opportunity for me!  

The Toyota Way is all about problem-solving. Define the issue. Pray for guidance. Make a decision.  

But as I went through my career at Toyota, I kept thinking about St. Ignatius 

and asking myself: are there bigger, harder problems to solve? That led me back to my grandfather, Emmet Tracy, a Ford factory worker who started in 1913. I have his badge and a picture of him on my desk – he was Ford employee #389.   

In 2007, I joined Ford – because I am an American, and because I wanted 

to help solve big, hairy American problems. Let me tell you, there is nothing that will put your problem-solving skills to the test like a full-blown crisis – and nothing that will provide a greater opportunity to serve others if you rise to the occasion.  

When I joined Ford, the economy was in free-fall. Ford had crippling debt, 

and nobody was buying cars and trucks. Our stock was down to a dollar 

and change.  Millions of Americans were depending on us.  

Bill Ford, our executive chair, brought us together. Under Bill’s leadership. 

we found a way to avoid bankruptcy – unlike GM and Chrysler. The Ford 

family even put up the Ford logo as collateral to borrow money. Imagine a 

family doing that after 110 years! 

We found a way. Cut billions in costs. Improved quality. Worked together 

with the unions. One problem after another. The impossible became 

possible. And we made it through. 

I know that I relied on God, St. Ignatius, and especially Lia as my rock. It 

all came back to problem solving. I learned it here at Georgetown – and it whispered in my ear throughout the crisis.   

The older I’ve gotten, the more I want to solve the big problems facing our 

country. And right now I want to revitalize the skilled trades – the plumbers and electricians and workers who make our lives possible but don’t get the 

respect, attention, or training they need or deserve. 

As you leave college, you’re going to face lots of problems – that’s life. 

Some will be ones that you cannot control, and some, as you grow in your 

careers, will be problems that you will choose to tackle.  

If you love solving problems, the bigger and nastier they are, the more 

fulfilled you will be. That’s why a lot of us are at Ford — we feel like our 

work makes society stronger, and makes America stronger. 

If you look at problems as opportunities rather than obstacles, you’ll 

be fulfilled forever. And so as you walk down the aisle with your diploma, ask yourself: How will I turn problems into opportunities? How will I face the most difficult moments?  In the end, it is these tough and hairy problems of substance that present the greatest gift of all – the privilege to humbly serve others. 

I am so proud, and honored, that Lia and I are here to meet you in person 

as you begin your journey to solve the problems of today and tomorrow. 

God bless all of you, Georgetown, the Jesuits and St Ignatius, my 

freshman Latin teacher, and Jan Karski. God Bless America!