Every grade school kid has a vision of making it to the pros. And every parent with what they believe is a prodigy child firmly believes that that is a distinct possibility. But the facts would indicate otherwise. Of all high school seniors only .03 percent will eventually have the opportunity to turn pro, and once they make that transition, the career of a professional athlete is rather short. Let Me tell you what I mean. The average professional golfer last 3.5 years. Basketball player 4.8, football 3.3, baseball 5.6, hockey 5.5, golf 3.5, and tennis at 9.5. So the statistics say that on average a professional athlete has a career of between three and ten years. That's rather short when you consider our average life expectancy is now approaching 80 years. One Of the most gratifying realities of working here at NISC is the longevity of our employees. For a technology company in an industry that is notorious for a high turnover that at times approaches 25 percent a year. NISC, even with a considerable number of employees who are reaching normal retirement, has a turnover rate of a modest 6 percent. What that means is that we have a significant amount of employees that have been here 20 plus years as evidenced by our 20 year Wall of Fame. Within the last month we have recognized employees for 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, and even 45 years of employment at NISC. Retired employee Larry Estell presently holds the years of service record at 45 years and four months. That's just about half a century and is simply amazing. But current employees Linda Bass and Rick Wilman are not far behind and will surely break Larry's record. Few employees in any company have the experience of working their entire adult life for a single employer. But yet, here at NISC, it is relatively common. Recently I was talking to a friend who works for a huge corporation that has a long and storied history of hiring rapidly then riffing off employees in a somewhat predictable cycle. He told me that the best part of his Friday afternoons, at his current place of employment, was not getting a pink slip because then he could relax for the weekend knowing that he had a job for at least another week. I can't even imagine what it must be like to be in constant fear of losing your job. But having said that, I don't think we should ever take for granted the stability that NISC has afforded our careers. I am grateful that here at NISC we can focus on serving our members and each other rather than being in constant fear of losing our jobs. Having a long career at NISC has also allowed us to witness strategies come to fruition, projects being completed, and software lifecycles playing themselves out, sometimes multiple times. Perhaps one of NISC longest and most arduous strategies is our goal to be a national player in the telephone and electric industry. I recall that in 1987 NCDC/CADP's average sized telecom and utility was 3,600 meters. Our largest site had just shy of 20,000 customers. In 1996 I was in a meeting with the CEO of a major competitor of ours who shall go unnamed, and he said and I quote "we'll take the big ones (meaning the big rural electric cooperatives) and you all NCDC and CADP can take the little ones." That comment has always stuck in my craw because what he was insinuating was that our software lacked the features, functionality, and stability to meet the demanding requirements of large, sophisticated sites. And the sad part was, the truth was that at that time in our history, that's exactly the way it was. And that really hurt. Fast Forward 20 years which include the formation of NISC and our relentless, aggressive investment in research and development in quality, our determination to deliver a full enterprise solution, and the way we embraced project management to improve the quality and the consistency of our implementations. You put that all together, and it's no accident that today NISC count as its members 8 of the ten largest rural electric cooperatives in the country and we are working with the other two as prospects. On the telephone side of our business, within our pipeline, are some of the largest independent telcos in the country. Today we serve organizations in excess of three hundred thousand users, and although we serve some of the smallest systems in the country, our average size is now over 20,000 meters and subscribers. My how those numbers have changed since 1987. The CEO's organization who made that bold, if not irritating, statement about NISC taking care of the little ones are nowhere to be seen in the top 10 sites. I must admit that, in a dark moment or two, I thought about calling that CEO and asking how that plan worked out for him. But that would be rude and arrogant, and I think we'll just let our progress quietly speak for itself. What an amazing accomplishment for our organization and reaching that national prominence in our industries gives us all the more confidence for the future. While many of us had aspirations for a career as a professional athlete or to see our mug on the cover of Sports Illustrated, the alternative has been a long and amazing career here at NISC. During that career to witness and be part of an incredible transformation of our organization from a small struggling startup regional provider to a national powerhouse. Whether you have been here at NISC for 45 days or 45 years, you are a part of this amazing story. The power of possibilities. Thanks For listening. I Appreciate you, Vern.
