MORTON PLUMB: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Commonwealth North. I am Mort Plumb, director of the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport and secretary to the Board of Directors for Commonwealth North. If you're like me it took a little while to get here. I understood it was up at the summit at the Egan Center, so I went upstairs and looked around there and then realized the summit was in the basement. I'm not sure how they came up with that.

At this time I would make a special request that if you do have a cell phone that you either harmonize them all to the same Brahms lullaby or put them on vibrate so we will - since I don't see consensus, please either turn them off or put them to a silent mode. In addition, you will see on your table we have some question cards. And a little bit later after our guests speak we will go ahead and have some questions. I would make a request, I did not bring my bifocals today, so you would write large and clearly, please, or we'll call Jeff up to handle the rest of it.

This should be an interesting program today. And of course we have the leadership here. But we also have some very important people here that have served in different positions within the legislature. I'd like to recognize them. Senator Pete Kelly from Fairbanks. If you'd stand up and - and Representative Nels Anderson from Dillingham. Senator Jim Duncan from Juneau. All right. Representative Larry Baker from Anchorage. My favorite, former speaker of the house, Gail Phillips. And today we're honored to have with us the president of the Senate, Senator Ben Stevens. And speaker of the house, John Harris.

Before we begin today's program I'd like to take a moment and introduce some folks. First of all, we're very pleased to announce and introduce our new Executive Director, in the back, Rick Barrier. Rick, we certainly look forward to working with you. And I'd be remiss if I didn't recognize someone else. Someone that has worked very hard to make this organization successful; someone that has done that for eight years; someone that gets up early in the morning, someone that takes all the words that we put together, or hand in and then make sense out of them, but most important, he has been the driving force and the leadership behind Commonwealth North, and that is Duane Heyman. Duane's going to stay near us. He's going to be the Executive Director of the Alaska Health Care Roundtable. And Duane, I want to personally thank you for your leadership and your eight years of service.

Let me take a minute here to introduce our head table and speakers. And from your left to my right here, Judy Cordell, executive director of AWAIC and new member of Commonwealth North. Walter J. Hickel, twice governor of the state of Alaska, former Secretary of Interior, co-founder of Commonwealth North and a great supporter of the airport. Bob Curtis-Johnson, general manager for Alaska Moving Image Preservation Association and a new member of Commonwealth North.

I understand, before I continue, I missed one. Former Speaker of the House Mike Bradner. Is this what you're going to tell me?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I don't know if that's big enough.

MR. PLUMB: Oh, yes. Okay. And Representative Sharon Cissna. Could we have them stand up and give them a round of applause?

Okay. Moving right along -- okay. We're going to sing Old Susannah here. Okay. Susannah Morgan, executive director of the Food Bank of Alaska and new member of Commonwealth North.

And now to start us off I'd like to introduce the president of the Senate, Ben Stevens. Before he steps up, I think most of us are certainly aware of the great job that Senator Stevens did when he was running the Special Olympics for Anchorage and for the state of Alaska, and I served on that board and Senator, you did a great job and you're doing a great job in the legislature, and I'd like to give you the podium.