President Barack Obama has frequently commented on the incredible influences he encountered on his road to the White House. One such influence, Prof. Charles Ogletree of Harvard University, spoke yesterday at Ithaca College, commenting on the President’s impact and early years before being elected to the highest position in the country.

“I met Barack when he first arrived at Harvard in 1988,” the professor at Harvard Law School said, addressing the crowded auditorium of Ithaca students and assorted listeners from across the city. “He was a little older than some of the other students who were there, but he never used his experience to belittle someone.”

Although he was a mentor of Obama’s, Ogletree’s life story follows an uncannily similar arc. Born to a loving but destitute African-American family in Merced, Calif., Ogletree displayed a fierce thirst for knowledge at an early age, gaining him admittance to Stanford University. He was involved in several activist groups on campus, and continued his education at Harvard Law School, where he now serves as the Jesse Climenko Professor of Law.

Throughout his career, he has not only taught America’s brightest minds, but also worked with them in the field of law as deputy director of the District of Columbia’s Public Defender Service. He is also founder of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard. Since 2005, the Institute has become one of the nation’s foremost leaders in furthering civil rights and diversity awareness.

Attendees watched as Ogletree’s colleagues discuss his life work in an opening video, including comments from the President himself. In the clip, Obama reminisced on Ogletree’s establishment of a “Saturday school” at Harvard, which served law students who came from impoverished backgrounds with fewer resources than their peers. The informal “school’s” goal was to clarify obtuse law concepts for struggling students, and Obama recalled Ogletree’s profound influence on so many of his classmates.

“He helps lift up voices that have been forgotten and lost,” Obama said in the video. “That’s been his life’s work, and he’s going to keep on doing it for many years to come.”

My good friend Barack: Prof. Charles Ogletree, law, Harvard, talks about his friendship with President Obama at Ithaca College last night.

Ogletree served as a key adviser in Obama’s campaign last fall, and came prepared with several anecdotes about the often beatified President. While at Harvard, young Barack was recruited by his classmates to be the first black President of the Harvard Law Review. Although he did not seek the position initially, his peers admired his charisma and ability to look at topics from multiple viewpoints and insisted him to lead.“It’s amazing to see the diversity of viewpoints, nuanced and far-reaching topics about law,” Ogletree said of Obama’s tenure as Law Review President.

Ogletree also joked that he gave Obama the idea for his “Yes We Can” campaign maxim. Obama came to the professor’s office seeking advice on whether he should keep his word to the Chicago neighborhood: he promised he would lead as a community organizer following law school. The job would be low paying and low profile, compared to the lucrative positions available to Obama in law offices across the country. Ogletree said he told the future president, “Yes you can,” and the rest is history.

“The remarkable thing about Barack Obama’s success is: it can be done, and you can do it,” Ogletree said. “The only special quality is a sense of commitment to make a difference. I really am impressed by young people today taking up the challenge to make a difference. There’s nothing we can’t do if we say, ‘Yes we can.’”

Ogletree was very well received by the large crowd and took questions following his speech. The presentation was part of Ithaca College’s equivalent to Cornell’s New Student Reading Project. All incoming I.C. students were mandated to read Obama’s bestselling autobiography Dreams From My Father, and have attended other seminars on the salience of the President’s message.

“He was really charismatic … and more personable than I thought he would be. He established his credibility, but didn’t harp on it,” said Ithaca College freshman Sarah Hesseltine ’13 of Ogletree. “I’ve always been a huge Obama supporter, and this cemented it even more.”