BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) _ Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt will give the commencement address at Virginia Tech next month. The university’s commencement exercises will be held May 15 at Lane Stadium. Schmidt has a longtime connection to Virginia Tech and Blacksburg. His father was the head of Virginia Tech’s economics department. Schmidt’s family was neighbors with the late university President Paul Torgersen. Schmidt donated $2 million in 2006 to endow the Paul and Dorothea Torgersen Dean’s Chair in Engineering at Virginia Tech. Schmidt also delivered the spring commencement address at Virginia Tech in 1999 when he was chairman and CEO of Novell Inc. Schmidt was Google’s CEO from 2001 to 2011.
