FORT KENT – A Canadian business magnate on Saturday told 203 degree recipients at the University of Maine at Fort Kent that attitude and commitment are the most important attributes in a life filled with goals.

James Irving, president of J.D. Irving Ltd., was the featured speaker at the 121st commencement exercises at the University of Maine System’s northernmost campus. Irving received an honorary doctorate of letters during the ceremonies.

The husband and wife team of Martin B. Bernstein, CEO of the Northern Maine Medical Center at Fort Kent for the last two decades, and Sandra B. Bernstein, SAD 27 superintendent for the last nine years, received the university’s annual Distinguished Service Award for 2003. “They are an amazing couple,” UMFK President Richard Cost said. “I am struck by the impact you have.”

A nearly full house of friends and relatives of the graduates attended the ceremonies on a day when almost an inch of snow fell in some areas of northern Maine.

Irving runs the family-owned J.D. Irving Ltd., a group of companies with a more than 100-year history in the forest products industry in Maine, New Brunswick, Quebec and Nova Scotia. The companies produce kraft pulp, newsprint, tissue, and corrugated paper and are involved in the oil industry and newspaper and broadcast industries in New Brunswick.

“This is an important milestone in your lives,” Irving told the graduates. “There should be a feeling of great pride in you and your families.

“The biggest single attribute I look for in people is attitude,” he said. “That makes people movers.”

He asked graduates to “make something of your lives by doing something you feel good about. It needs to be something you feel good about doing as you get up in the morning.”

The international businessman told students not to lock themselves into things, and he urged them to find something else to do if their work doesn’t excite them. “Set a goal and don’t let anything distract you from it,” Irving told them. “You’ve realized one goal, getting a degree; go for another.”

Graduates were asked to be open to learning for the rest of their lives because change occurs every day. People must take advantage of life’s lessons, Irving said.

Of this year’s 203 UMFK graduates, 102 are from Canada, mostly from Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. The students come to UMFK with bachelor’s degrees and attend classes for three semesters to acquire teaching certificates. Most of them return to their provinces to teach.

Cost said the number of Canadian graduates is high, but not so in comparison to the overall enrollment of 750 students.

The ceremony on Saturday was Cost’s first commencement at UMFK. He became president last summer.

He urged graduates to “become problem solvers” instead of people who identify or talk about problems without offering solutions.

“Problem solvers are gems,” he said. “They are sought out, appreciated and ultimately rewarded.”

The UMFK recipients of associate and baccalaureate degrees are part of more than 4,500 degrees that UMS will award this spring, according to UMS Trustee Gregory G. Cyr of Ashland.