MTC's Therese McMillan addresses UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design grads

Therese McMillan, Executive Director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, addressed UC Berkeley's graduating class from the College of Environmental Design earlier this month.

McMillan graduated from the same college in 1984, and in 2011 she was awarded the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design Distinguished Alumni award. 

At the commencement ceremonies, McMillan delivered her speech “Place, People, and the Public Interest” in which she urged graduates to take care of their fellow men and women.

"Even as the capacity of architectural design races ahead with new technologies; even as we painfully claw back shards of our environment from oblivion; even as our cities and their fantastic mix of customs and cultures shift and change before our eyes — taking care of people is at the heart of what we do," she said.

"People are the public. The public interest must be about advancing the public good — why wouldn’t it be? And unless we actually set out to divide and suppress, this good must be afforded to everyone, consciously and deliberately," McMillan said. 

You can read her entire speech here.