A Remarkable Story Inspiring Tomorrow's Leaders ... one of the things that most other schools forget about, but that A&M loves and so accepts is just the tradition of the freshman class... ... It’s about character and figuring out what do you put your priorities in, what personality traits when someone looks at you, what’s really important to you... ... It’s to honor David and to inspire people with David’s life, and to share his story... ... David was just a very good friend, and he was a very good friend to anyone who he was a friend to, which was, I mean it is a ridiculous amount of people who, look at the number of people that came to the service. Look at the number of people who have come up to you guys over the years and said, “I loved your son.” I think that was the thing, is he just was endearing. If you met David, he was a great guy. He really cared about you. He would sit down, have a conversation with you. - Leadership - Service - Integrity - Character - Servant Leadership - Involvement - Celebrating Character That first year after David passed away was hard. It was a hard year. ...We are excited about the future of the GLC. It’s beyond our simple minds... ... I’m so glad that I did because GLC, I can say with full confidence, has been the most impactful thing on my life since coming to A&M. ...What I would say to you now, a few years later, is that at A&M and also in the world, a name matters. The Gilbert name, on campus, means something different now, than it did. It means something. It means a lot. It means what David meant to us. We tried to put a little piece of that into the conference...You should tell people, “I didn’t know David Gilbert, but this conference is named after this incredible person. This is what we’re here to do.” ...we also want to impact the people that are here today to continue to take advantage of every opportunity that they have on this Earth, at A&M. Inspiring Service We cared so deeply about this conference, and we wanted it to go off without a hitch. You can just see how bad we just wanted it to be great...that’s why I’m here right now, and why I applied to be on staff for the conference, just because of what an impact it made on my life and and saying , “What do you do with tomorrow?” ...this really is one of the most incredible, I call it the best kept secret of A&M... ...So much about this conference is not about looking back at what we did. That is the grounding and that is important, but it’s instilling all of that in what is going forward... I went on the second conference as a delegate. After that, I was in charge of delegates. Last year, I was in charge of operations. Now I’m in charge of programming. Maybe next year, I’ll try to do development and cover the whole committee. ...I was a delegate on the second conference. I was a programs for the third conference... Now I get the honor of serving as director. I don’t know, I feel like everyone’s going to change history...if we’re doing this now, in college, what are we going to do in ten years...? ...Last year, I had a blast serving as programs coordinator with Thomas. This year I serve as a development coordinator with Allison. It’s my third year being involved, and it’s awesome. ...That’s exciting to be a part of, and to see that’s still going on. ...the cool thing is, they go ask freshmen as delegates, we touch on leadership, getting involved. That next semester comes around, they are getting involved. They’re becoming chairs of the conference. I remember being at the conference and thinking wow, I mean, I looked at these guys, I looked at the delegates, and I just I knew that this would never end. It would never stop. Encouraging Involvement ...the one thing it should be, is about helping freshmen find their passion early on......that’s what I love about A&M is the love that everyone has for the freshman class... that’s what I think the spirit of GLC kind of also incorporated a lot was to not forget about the freshman class, and not forget about people that can kind of slip through cracks... ...it just, it gives you so many things because you don’t just go to school. I didn’t really learn that much in class, but I got a lot of experience to do a lot of things.