JOE GRIFFITH: : Good morning. Welcome to Commonwealth North's 25th Annual Meeting. My name is Joe Griffith, I'm CEO for Chugach Electric, President of Commonwealth North for a few more minutes. As a courtesy to your fellow Commonwealth North members and all the rest of us please turn off your cell phones, or put them on quiet, or whatever the mode you have there.

A big thank you to Lynette Harple, our pianist this morning. It's really good to have you back. Doesn't that sound good? (Applause)

This is our annual meeting so we'll have a few extra items that we have to take care of added to this agenda. We'll hold our annual meeting, which will be very brief, we'll then hear from our keynote speaker, Mr. William Ayer, the Chairman, President, and CEO of Alaska Airlines and Alaska Air Group. For our board members present, please remember you need to stick around a few minutes after our adjournment so we can have a brief but important board meeting to elect the officers for the new year.

Before we start with today's program our bylaws require an annual business meeting. Due to the length of the program we'll keep that short. We have a quorum under our rules. Printed annual reports and additional information are on each table for your review, and includes last year's minutes from the annual meeting, a list of major accomplishments, and there are many for the last year. KPMG reviewed financial statements and a list of underwriters for calendar year 2003. Current 2004 underwriters were presented on the projection screen you saw earlier and they're listed on the flyers on the table. I'd like to thank all of our underwriters, that's what keeps us in business, and we could not accomplish our mission without your help. Thank you so much.

If there is no objection from the group I would like to dispense with the reading of the minutes.

Hearing no objection, the reading of the minutes is dispensed with. Let me announce the election results for 2004/2005 Board of Directors. Serving one year terms; Alice Galvin, Pat Gamble, Marvin Swank, Melinda Taylor, Alma Upicksoun, Eric Wohlforth. For three year terms; Jan Fredricks, Betsy Lawer, Janie Leask, Mort Plumb, Tom Nighswander. For lifetime board membership I'm going to ask Jon Kumin to preside. If Jon has all of his folks supporting him he might be the new president here before long.

JON KUMIN: We're waiting for that palace coup. Our bylaws provide for electing past presidents of Commonwealth North and former Governors of Alaska to lifetime membership on the Commonwealth North Board. This year your board voted to recommend to you, our members, that the following individual be elected to a lifetime board membership and we have soon to be immediate past president, Joe Griffith. And, do I hear a motion for such an election?

UNIDENTIFIED: So moved.

MR. KUMIN: And a second?

UNIDENTIFIED: I second.

MR. KUMIN: Okay. Thank you. Are there any objections to this motion.

Hearing none, the motion prevails. Joe, congratulations. Thank you. I'll turn the meeting back to you. Good work. (Applause)

I'd like to thank Joe for his great leadership for the last three years and all the hard work. It was great.

MR. GRIFFITH: Thank you, Jon. Gosh, that was an overwhelming presentation. Thank you, Jon. And I'll do my best if I might for the rest of my lifetime, and hopefully that'll be a long one.

Moving ahead, is there any old or new business that should be brought before the body?

Hearing none the business portion is adjourned. Board members, don't forget to hang on a few minutes after this is over so we can have an election of officers.

On your table are question cards. Write the questions down, hold the cards up, and staff will come around to collected them and bring them up here and we'll present them to Mr. Ayers at his presentation.

I also am advised that Orin Seybert is in the -- Orin, where are you? Oh, there's Orin. Orin heads PenAir, a partner with Alaska Airlines, and Orin I understand it's your birthday. Happy birthday. (Applause)

Let me introduce our head table. From my right to left and from your left to right if you're facing me; Eric Wohlforth, an attorney with Wohlforth, Vassar, Johnson, & Brecht, Trustee and past Chairman of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, among many other community, church, and civil leadership accomplishments. Mr. Wohlforth is a newly elected member of our board. Eric, good to have you here.

To his left, Governor Walter J. Hickel, twice Governor of Alaska, former Secretary of the Interior, and co-founded of Commonwealth North.

To the Governor's left, Melinda Taylor, Communications Director International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and a member of the Executive Board of the Anchorage Central Labor Council. Melinda is a recent member of the Anchorage Assembly and a newly elected member of our board as well.

To her left, Scott Miller, a partner with KPMG. We owe a huge thanks to you folks, Scott, for providing your services to Commonwealth North. Thank you again for five long years of support, we appreciate it.

To Scott's left, Alma Upicksoun, Vice President and Chief Counsel of Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, newly elected board member also. Good to have you aboard Alma.

And Bob Bulmer, to her left, President of Alaska Executive Search, our underwriter today. Bob, thank you for underwriting. Bob is a former board member, Vice President of Commonwealth North, and he remains an active member today. Thank again for underwriting the event.

And William Ayer to his left, who I will introduce now. Bill is a veteran of more than 20 years in aviation. He began his career with Alaska in 1995 as Vice President for Marketing and Planning. Since then he has held the post of Senior V.P. of Customer Service, Marketing and Planning, President, Chief Operating Officer, and in 2002 he became the carrier's Chief Executive Officer. In May of 2003 he was appointed Chairman. Before his tenure with Alaska, Mr. Ayer spent 13 years at Horizon Air where he held a variety of marketing and operations positions of increasing responsibility.

Prior to joining Alaska he was Horizon's Senior V.P. for Operations. Before joining Horizon Ayer founded and was President of Air Olympia, a small commuter airline serving Washington state.

He also served as a regional manager for Piper Aircraft Corporation. A member of the board of directors of the Museum of Flight, Ayer serves on the University of Washington Business School Advisory Board. He also serves on the board of Angel Flight America.

He is a graduate of Stanford University where he majored in economics, he has a Masters degree in business administration from the University of Washington. He holds a commercial pilot and flight instructor certificate with instruments and multi engine ratings. He and his wife Pam reside in Bellevue, Washington with their daughter, Elizabeth. Bill could you tell us about our favorite airline? (Applause)