Opening and Welcome

DeanGarrey Carruthers: Good morning. I am Garrey Carruthers. I am dean of the College of Business and director of the Pete V. Domenici Institute. I’m delighted to be able to do both of those jobs. This is the most responsive crowd I’ve ever been before. I asked them to come in and sit down, and they did! [Audience Laughter]

So, we have got a dynamite conference coming up in just a few minutes. I’m gonna wait another three or four minutes; there’s some people in the registration line. But I thought we’d get ready and kind of sit back, relax and we’ll start it in three or four minutes. We’re gonna have a wonderful conference—so delighted all of you are here. So, I’ll be back to you in about three or four minutes.

[Conference Pause]

Dean Carruthers: Okay. Good morning again. Welcome to the fifth annual Domenici Public Policy Conference. And, in that I’m in my so-called five-year review as dean at New Mexico State University, I thought it’d be prudent for me to introduce the authorities from New Mexico State University. It’s called sucking up. [Audience Laughter] But, anyway, we have with us the president of our university—I’ll give a better introduction a little later on—Dr. Barbara Couture [Audience Applause]; Dr. Wendy Wilkins, who is the Provost of New Mexico State University [Audience Applause]; Michael Cheney, who is the chairman of the Board of Regents, and he’ll be introduced a little more later on [Audience Applause]; Chris Delaney, who is a local businessman and a member of the Board of Regents [Audience Applause]; and then, I know that Kari Mitchell, who is the most recent appointment to the Board, is here somewhere, but I can’t—I can see there’s an audience out there, barely, but the lights are pretty bright. But, when Kari comes in, if I see her again, I’ll introduce her.

One of the things that we like to do is to make this conference as affordable as we possibly can, and that only happens through the generosity of our sponsors. We actually offer it at a very low price. I think it was fifty dollars cash, American; no Euros accepted. And, it’s free to our students. One of the things, when Senator Domenici and I began to work on this project, we thought it was very important to have student engagement in these kinds of policy discussions, and we’ve been very pleased to have great turnout for students. We’ll probably have over 400 students at this conference today, maybe 450 students.

This is the greatest subscription to the conference we’ve ever had. It’s somewhere over 900 people have signed up altogether for these various sessions. [Audience Applause]

And, as you know, students, in particular, will come and go as they go to class. In fact, I got a student coming up here in just a minute that has to run off and take an exam. And so, we like that kind of dedication in our students, that they want to go to class, but they want to participate here.

I’m gonna quickly go over the sponsors. First of all, though, let me introduce the committee, if you can see them. Sara Patrico