July 22, 2008
Prepared remarks by Melinda French Gates, co-chair
I’m so excited to be here. We have all been working on this project for so long, and I can hardly believe today has finally come. Of course, today means two more years of hard work before the ribbon cutting ceremony!
For all of you who work at the foundation, you’ve been shuttling back and forth among five different offices, and I want to thank you for continuing to do great work under circumstances that aren’t exactly ideal.
For those here representing the city, you have been our partner since the very beginning. I want to thank you for working with us every step of the way.
For our new neighbors in Queen Anne, you’ve put up with an even messier Mercer Mess. Thank you for your patience, and it won’t be long before this place looks more like something you can be proud of.
The theme of this groundbreaking is “local roots, global mission.” It might seem like that’s a pair of opposites, local on one side and global on the other. But Bill and I believe they fit together perfectly. A global outlook is at the core of what it means to be a Seattleite—and a Pacific Northwesterner.
We are the home of Boeing, which made the world much smaller by ushering in the Jet Age. We are the home of Microsoft, which connects people across the globe. We are standing at the site of the 1962 World’s Fair.
In fact, Bill Sr. took his young children, including the one who became my husband, to visit that World’s Fair. The Gates family has been a part of this community for years. And we don’t see any difference between our commitment to helping the poorest people in the world, and our commitment to the community in which we live. It all comes from the principle that all lives have equal value—that all people are equally precious.
For us, this building stands for that principle, and for our optimism that—together—we can make it a reality for more and more people. We hope our headquarters will be a hub for the growing number of advocates and experts from all over the world who are driving innovation so that it helps the people who need it most.
The essential idea is engagement. That’s why we decided to build right here at Seattle Center. We want to be a part of this community, of this world. We do not want to sit up on a hilltop or way out in the suburbs where people can’t reach us.
And that’s why we’re so excited about the visitor center that will be a part of these headquarters. Part of our job is to help people learn about some of the problems that face our world. And to inspire them to help solve those problems. And that’s what the visitor center will do.
We’re designing this building to foster collaboration for the hundreds of people who will work in it. But we also hope the Gates Foundation can be a catalyst for a truly worldwide collaboration—a massive collaboration with the more than 1 billion people who have not shared in the great prosperity of this century.
If our hopes come true, if we achieve our global mission, it will be a testament to the strength of our local roots right here in Seattle. And with that, I’d like to introduce our mayor, Greg Nickels.