Our fiftieth BlogCast on our fiftieth anniversary. This is such an amazing coincidence that we would be delivering our fiftieth BlogCast on the eve of NISC's fiftieth anniversary. I do believe that sometimes things happen for a reason. Well this has been quite a week. It began with our travels to Nashville for NISC's utility annual meeting and our fiftieth celebration, which we hosted on Sunday at noon. And a celebration it certainly was! Once that event was finished, we dashed to the airport, headed to Austin, Texas, and the telecom annual meeting and fiftieth celebration, which we hosted on Monday afternoon. While we have hosted each of these annual meetings literally for the past 50 years, this year presented some unique scheduling challenges. The utility annual meeting has always been held in conjunction with the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association's (NRECA) annual meeting and Expo, and the Telecom annual meeting is held in conjunction with the National Telecommunications Association's (NTCA) annual meeting and Expo. So NISC really does not have a whole lot to say on the dates that they select. Rather we're beholding to these two national associations and the dates that they give us. So consequently this year these sessions literally ended up on top of each other, which meant that we had to divide our staff and conquer in order to be literally in two places - Nashville and Austin - at virtually the same time. Considering the unique scheduling challenges this year, we could not be more pleased with the outcome. Our communications, events, learning center, and technical teams executed masterfully covering for each other, in some cases pulling double duty but always being professional, determined, and I will say as I watched them in amazement as they delivered on their assignments, they were so impressive. Our sincere thanks for their work. They certainly made all of us as NISC employees proud. But there is one aspect of these events that make me very uncomfortable. While I have not written a single line of code or installed a single piece of NISC software or even taken a support call, I have the distinct honor, and it truly is an honor, of being on the stage representing our organization and presenting a report to our Membership on what truly are your accomplishments and contributions to this organization. For me, I've got to be honest, it feels very uncomfortable because I would not and could not take credit for your accomplishments. I would feel much better if all 1,150 of our employees were on the stage with me. While I have the distinct privilege of delivering the annual report, I will never forget it is all of you that I represent. I'm so grateful to tell the story of your progress, your accomplishments, and your contributions to NISC. I could not be more humbled or proud or grateful to be the spokesman for our organization. Thanks for all you do. Which places me in such a favorable position of telling an amazing story, the story of NISC's growth and the journey from being a good company to a great company. There are times when I feel like I don't deserve this honor. I appreciate you, Vern.
