Governor Delivers Remarks at Irish Technology Leadership Group Awards Banquet

Governor Delivers Remarks at Irish Technology Leadership Group Awards Banquet

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER: Wow, what an introduction. Well, thank you very much, Tom, I really appreciate that. And I just also want you to know that Tom McEnery was the first Democrat that came on board when I ran for governor. He organized the whole committee and the whole group, Democrats for Schwarzenegger. So I want to thank you for this great friendship. And this is the way the Irish are, I've always had a great relationship with the Irish. So thank you very much. Let's give him a big hand for this great, great commitment. (Applause)

But I have to say on top of it, the Irish gave me a lot of votes. I got the Irish-Americans and the Irish in California here, 80 percent of their votes from them. So this is really unbelievable. And the other 20 percent just never forgave me for my movie "Hercules in New York." (Laughter) So I totally understand that.

But anyway, I just want to also -- there are a few other people here I want to just mention. Mayor Chuck Reed, thank you very much for being here today and for being such a great partner. Let's give him a big hand also for his great, great work that he is doing. (Applause) Then Consul General Staunton and John Hartnett, the president of the Irish Technology Leadership Group. And then we have also Mayor Donohue from Salinas -- where is Mayor Donohue? Because I saw you this morning already, you must be stalking me. (Laughter) But anyway, thank you very much for being here. And then Carl Guardino, who is from the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, is he here somewhere? He's supposed to be here. He's probably stuck in traffic. But then we have Mark Little. I want to thank him for doing the great emceeing job. Thank you very much for the great work that you are doing also. (Applause)

And I'm going to be very brief, but the one that is responsible for me being here today is, of course, Tom McEnery. He asked me, he sent me a very wonderful letter and explained to me the whole history of the Irish and the contributions they make, and all the new visions that you have and what you want to accomplish here and I have to come to this event here. So I want to say thank you very much for inviting me to be here today.

First of all, let me just say that I wanted to come here because you all do business in California, but also because I love Ireland and I love the Irish. As you have heard already, that I married an Irish girl, which was not easy in the beginning, not because -- (Laughter) You can imagine. I mean, Teddy -- you know, we didn't hit it off well right off the top. I mean, it maybe had something to do with my Austrian accent, that we didn't kind of understand each other. I maybe didn't understand his accent either. But I think maybe it was the Democrat versus Republican thing, or something like that, because the first thing he said to me when I met him -- it was 1977 -- he said, "What do you do for a living?"

I said, "I'm an actor."

He said, "Oh, I have seen your movies. You're no actor." (Laughter)

I said, "I can't believe that. What kind of a greeting is that?" And it started right there. It was very complicated.

Then when Maria and I started going out I remember that then she moved out to California. And so when her parents came out to visit us we wanted to cook a dinner for them and we decided to do this combination of Austrian cooking, a schnitzel and corn beef and cabbage -- you know, Irish -- and mix it all together. But you know what you get after that? Heartburn. (Laughter) So it was not a big hit, this meal, let me just tell you that.

But anyway, it is great to be here today with all of you. And like I said, I love Ireland. My love for Ireland goes back, way to the bodybuilding days, because when I was lifting and when I was competing in all the championships, the world championships, one of the places I went most frequently was Belfast. There was a guy by the name of Ivan Dunbar who was there, who was the organizer of the strongman competitions and bodybuilding competitions, and somehow that town was kind of the Mecca of strongmen. And so this is where I went quite frequently and I fell in love with that place and with the country.

Then, of course, later on, I did a lot of my movie promotions in Ireland and made a lot of friends, if it's poets and writers and actors and entertainers, and of course you have great, great musicians. I mean, there's so much great talent, and painters and everything that is coming out of your country, that is really staggering.

But the greatest experience I've ever had in Ireland, I have to tell you, was when I went over there for the International Special Olympic Games in 2003. It was just before I ran for governor when I went over. I'm the International Coach of Special Olympics and have been for 30 years, and so I went over there for the opening ceremony. I have never seen a Special Olympics event where people came from all over the world, thousands of athletes and thousands of parents and coaches and volunteers and everything, all coming together. And they opened up their homes with the most unbelievable hospitality. The people didn't have to stay in hotels. The athletes stayed in individuals' homes, the coaches stayed in homes, the parents stayed in homes. Everyone was just taken in with this unbelievable love and hospitality. And I have never seen the organization like this before.

So it was really an extraordinary, generous thing, a great public-private partnership and also of the nonprofit sector. Everyone worked together. And I felt so good leaving this country and saying to myself, this little country that has maybe 6 million population, a little less than Austria has, but to pull off the biggest and the best games and to take care of those athletes, those Special Olympians -- people that normally, where there's such prejudice against them and where they're dismissed as kind of second class citizens. And what Special Olympics is all about is to make them feel equal and to get rid of the prejudice and to be inclusive and to show them love and to give them a chance to get a job and to participate in sports and equal rights and all of those kinds of things. So Ireland was the ultimate of that, so I want to give all of you a great, great hand for that great, great organization. (Applause)

Now let me just -- I know that I was given a bunch of remarks here and a long speech and stuff like that, but I'm not going to go and look at that, because a lot of times this is too formal for my taste. (Laughter) But the bottom line here is you're all here to do business. And we in California -- I think that, without any doubt, this is the number one state in this country. And we're the number one place in the world, there are no ways about that.

We are number one in so many things. (Applause) We are number one in so many things, if it is in technology, high technology, nanotechnology, if it is in biotechnology, in green technology, if it is in the movie industry, entertainment in general, if it is in agriculture -- we feed the world, we are the bread basket of the world. I mean, the list goes on. We have the best university system in the world and all of those kinds of things.

And of course California, like every other place in the world, we now have an economic crisis. But even though we have an economic slowdown, we only went down by 2.8 percent economically, if you think about that. And it is because we are diversified. We have so many different industries from up and down the state of California and we are so diversified, and that's what actually saved us. And also this state, this is a state where so many people come from around the world and bring so much talent.

And you are an example of that. The Irish have contributed so much with their companies and their innovation, especially in Silicon Valley and now, for you to come over here and to open this center in San Jose and to bring 75 people over here, business leaders from Ireland and to establish shop here and to form partnerships.

And I have already said I'm looking forward to going on a trade mission to Ireland and I'm going to take you with me, Tom. OK? You can't get out of that one. (Applause) I'm going to go over there with a trade mission because I love the idea of doing business. This is what it is all about, not to just stay in the state but to go and do business overseas, to form partnerships overseas as much as you do to form partnerships over here.

And I think that all of us, in a way, are immigrants. Some people have been born here and that are Americans, but we all, people that come over here like myself, that had a dream as a kid to come to America -- then I came over here and, you know, all my dreams became a reality because of California, because California truly is the place, the land of opportunity. America is the land of opportunity, but California is truly the land of opportunity. I mean, this is where I was received with open arms.

I am sure that all of you that came over here feel exactly the same way. If you work hard in California, if you work hard in America, you can make it. The important thing is that you contribute. You come over here and you use your intelligence, you contribute to this state, you contribute to this country, and you will make it. If you just want to live off this state and wait for a handout, that's the wrong place to come. I mean, even though you do get a handout.

But I mean, the bottom line is -- (Laughter) The bottom line is, I like it when people come over here and really dedicate themselves to America and then wrap themselves with the American flag. You can still be -- you know, go and be connected to your culture and to your language and be connected with your country and all of those things. But when you come over here and you become an American, then you wrap yourself with the American flag and you're an American, and that's the only thing you think about when you're over here.

So I am in touch with Austria. I visit Austria, I visit the gravesite of my parents, every so often I go over there and do business, I go over there and visit my friends. Of course we stay in touch. But this is the place, this is the place that I am loyal to, is California and it's the United States.

And I think that the contributions that all of you have made is really spectacular. And I can guarantee you that California is always going to be the greatest place to do business. I mean, I remember that from the time I became governor we have been fighting to make it a more business-friendly environment here in California.

The first thing that I did was reform Workers Compensation, which saved now the state already $50 billion, the businesses in this state, so it really was a great success.

And the next thing we did was, because I know that infrastructure is so important in order to have a successful economy and a successful future, so we went out and we launched a campaign to rebuild California, something that hasn't been done for decades. And we started building the roads and freeways, highways, bridges and tunnels, onramps and offramps and all of those things.

We started looking at our levee system. We have 2,300 miles of levees that were the most vulnerable levees. We started fixing those vulnerable areas of our levees and spent $4.6 billion on fixing that.

We started building affordable housing, building our schools, and $20 billion in school bonds to rebuild our schools and university buildings and so on. We want to rebuild. And also, California has made a commitment to the high-speed rail, because we are still traveling like 100 years ago, with the same speed with our trains. So it's about time that we get a high-speed rail like other continents have and like China has and Germany has, Italy and England, France. All of them have high-speed rail. So we now have made a commitment to build our high-speed rail also.

And, of course, on the ballot this fall, which is very important that you all vote yes, is the water bonds, which is for the first time in four decades that we are rebuilding our water infrastructure, which of course is the lifeblood for California. We can't be without water. You cannot open a business without first having a source of water. So water is extremely important for farming, for everything. And we have a shortage of water because our infrastructure was built for 18 million people by Pat Brown in the '60s, and since then it hasn't been upgraded. So now we're going to build the canal, we're going to build water storage, above the ground and below the ground. We're going to monitor our groundwater, we're going to clean our groundwater and fix the Delta. All of those things will be part of rebuilding California, so I am very excited about that.

And, of course, I'm also excited about being in the position to be able to go and kill and veto the job-killing bills that kill businesses in California. So whenever a bill comes down to my desk that looks like, or smells like a job killer, it gets vetoed because we want businesses to be successful in our state. (Applause)

So we're going to do everything that we can to rebuild California, to bring our economy back. Our revenues are coming back again. For the first time last month we had $1.3 billion more in revenues coming in, so we're going to see an upswing. With the housing market we see an upswing. We have now an economic stimulus package that we are now having in the Legislature debates over, a job creation package we have that the Legislature is debating over.

So we just want you to know that we're going to do everything, because we know that the private sector has been very successful in California but the public sector has slacked off a little bit. And this is why it was very important for me to get elected governor, to come in here and to start really working with everyone, bring Democrats and Republicans together.

And sometimes I feel like -- and I know there is St. Patrick's Day that we are celebrating in two days, which is all about having chased the snakes out of Ireland. But they landed in Sacramento, there are few of those snakes that landed in Sacramento. (Laughter) And I just want you to know that I'm going to go and celebrate St. Patrick's Day and celebrate and celebrate, and I hope all of you celebrate with me so we get rid of those snakes also and chase them out of there.

So anyway, I want to say thank you very much for being here today, thank you for doing business in California, and I'll be back. Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause)

>>: Well, thank you very much, Governor. We heard that you took up a new sport of sailing, and this is a beautiful Waterford Crystal piece of glass and we are glad that you'll be back in Ireland.

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER: Thank you very much. Thank you.

>>: Thank you.

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER: Thank you. (Applause) I didn't expect that, so thank you very much. I mean, I have -- coming from bodybuilding and from weightlifting and from acting, you get many awards, obviously, and trophies and medals and all this. But this, without any doubt, is the most recent. (Laughter) Thank you very much. Thank you very much, I appreciate it. (Applause)

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