Good afternoon. And welcome to todays distinguished speakers scare on series. And to open the program to lay we are delighted to open up for this very special event and in the history of Dicks Sporting Goods which i could get the book early and read its a great book and a great story if you have not gotten a chance i strongly urge you to do that we are glad to have you here today and welcome you home. Welcoming our invited guest in particular to the new Vision Business Academy students and the district of our region here today in particular if you are not familiar with University Forum its a Membership Organization to bring together people who share a commitment to the university and our Great Community to strengthen the bond between the two our mission is to enter energize and engage in in which the university as we work to establish the premier university and welcome any of you that are interested to join the membership it brings great people together for outstanding events just like this we have people in the lobby from current members and Staff Members are happy to give you more information if you would like to join please check to be sure your phones are silent and we will have the opportunity to ask questions and then we have microphones available the staff will come over to get you the microphone so as you finish your meal and dessert its my pleasure to introduce our great president. [applause] thank you jason welcome to members and guests its great to see so many people here its a great event one of the long time supporters for what he has done for us over the course of his career but also the new Distribution Center and the belief and thank you for all that. Thank you very much. [applause] of course he wont be talking about that. We are talking about his book today how we play the game you cant see it that my dog enjoyed mine. But it has been an exciting semester did you hear one of our faculty members won the nobel prize . [applause] in chemistry. And stanley joined the faculty in 1988 we put them on a management track and took him out of science he said i had to go to a place that would support me he couldve gone anywhere he will be receiving the nobel prize what a humble man we had any fit for him last friday he gave his remarks we had the chairman remarks were wonderful but it was the hundreds of students that came up to him and he did not leave that room until he signed autographs and they finally had to carry him away to the room because he had another event there was a Chinese Opera performance but he gave remarks and stayed on stage and show cans with everybody there and was the last one to leave hes also a great man and a gray ambassador for being of university. The freshman class is all in and accounted for 1000 transfer students 1500 new graduate students thats a record for us working really hard to increase graduate enrollment we have 91 new students that doctor of Pharmacy Program one student over the goal we have 231 students the cohort will bring them around 330 in the spring of 2021 its a Long Time Coming for that a little more than 14000 undergrads which is a number we want to maintain with a high school gpa is a great group of students and they all support in so many ways even through their volunteer work we also celebrated a new name returned it to the college of nursing its now known as the Decker College there are Board Members here today and the Decker Foundation thank you so much and with that we will be expanding that college into speech and language pathology. That is exciting construction and is still ongoing you have plenty of time to go over there and watch the renovation it is quite a transformation they are doing to the building it is a stateoftheart facility its one of the original buildings that was built here also in r d building and also acquired park street and the state has given us funds to renovate to innovate the pharmaceutical sciences with the rest of University Also opening an elder care clinic still a supporter of all the activities there but looking at our building is now a parking lot but industry would like to partner with us is all i have to say today all stand all the tim time. We will talk more about winningham and the achievements so thank you for being here so now to introduce him mister myers who will introduce him. [applause] first of all thank you for coming today and i am thrilled to introduce my father author of the book how to play the game in the words of the great yankee i would like to say thank you for making this. [laughter] i can promise you will not be disappointed with what he has to say about the history and just a few blocks up the road that before he comes up here as someone who has known him longer than everyone else i want to tell you a few things like back when our stepmom sister died of cancer he decided to do something to sponsor a Fishing Contest with all proceeds going to the american cancer society. He wont tell you that when calvin charities was tried to feed people on thanksgiving he donated over 100 turkeys and when he got word there was not enough he donated more we were robbing peter to pay paul as a business he will tell you about his laser focus and mission to expand the store because thats the way we referred to it growing up because what other store was there . His focus was also on the betterment to recognize the life lessons following our dads example and created sports matters foundation. And he also wont tell you and after the area was hit with the most horrific flood what do they need . I said they need anything and everything we got. Because families in need. The next day truck after truck after truck came rolling into our area hundreds of thousands of dollars of worth of coats him backpacks and clothing and sneakers. You also wont tell you that when the company needed a new Distribution Center to service the northeast corridor it was his first choice of those 400 jobs that created the Distribution Center open 10 miles up the road. One of the many cliches never forget where you came from. He never forgot where he came from. Yet another School Shooting happened in parkland florida and he wont tell you is when he called me to tell me of his commitment to do something. What i will tell you is the voice was not that of the ceo of a corporation he was just my brother, a kid who was angry and led to do something. And to say this will be bad this will cost us a fortune , but i dont care. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome home my big brother and ceo of Dicks Sporting Goods. [applause] thank you everyone for allowing me to be here so congratulations. When my sister again, kim thank you for the introduction if they said they would introduce you like this. [laughter] and you thought of all the things you did to them when you were a kid it would make you pretty nervous because some of the things i did to my poor sister was just terrible she always told me she would get me back and she never did. I thought this would be at. She was making fun of me one day and she wanted to go water skiing. She was just like a little sister to be a pain in the neck i said i will take you. So we went around the lake twice and the second time there is a huge section of only pad you dont want to go swimming in those but i took a right to the lily pads she got right in the middle and i slow down. [laughter] and i dropped her right into them she was yelling and screaming. [laughter]. A thank you for allowing me to be here today to talk about basically three things. They allow sports and whats happening in the new sports today and how important it is for our kids and then a bit about what we did from the firearms standpoint and why i actually wrote the book. Not far from where we are now this is the original store that my father started a. Of the way he started this business, he was a kid working not far from here and his dad was killed in a car accident when he was young so he spent a lot of time fishing in the rivers of his grandfather and it started t to dry up in 1948 or o and he said to my father i know you are a big fisherman. He put together in order for us to get into the tackle business. My father put hi his or her together to get into the tackle business and he told the story, and i talked about this in the book, he told the story every year he stayed up a little bit later. By the time he told my kids, he stayed up all night long but it was only two sheets of paper so i have no idea what he was doing all night but he said he did. He went back the next day, gave the order and it was obviously a bad mood today. He told my dad he didnt know what he was doing. My father grabbed a piece of paper and never went back, went to his grandmothers house and was really upset. This was a depression ridden den family. They had nothing. His grandmother finally said what would it take for you to do this ourselves. He said 300. She walked to the back of the kitchen and reached into the cookie jar and took out 300, gave it to him and said go start your own business so he went to start this business and it started really small. We used to tease him about how small it was because if you look right here, it was so small the post office didnt give it a full mailing address. 453 and a half quart street. That is a pretty small place. He ran his place of business and did well some years and not so well other years. Then he went out of business. He opened up a second store and went out of business. Six weeks or eight weeks later got back into business but when he went out he made sure nobody lost any money. He made sure he gave all the products he could to the suppliers, he sold his house and car come had to mov, had to movh his mother. My mother just had me and was pregnant with kim. She had to move back in with her parents but he made sure nobody lost any money. About eight weeks later he got back into business and back on court street and always kind of did okay but he was always in debt. He had a great story he would always look at me and say which i didnt understand at the time he would say if i had when i moved i would truly be a wealthy man and a lot of people feel that way. But he had a great empathy for kids. He was a tough guy. He was a tough old school guy. He wasnt this warm and cuddly guy on the outside but he had a really good heart on the inside and one of the things he did was he read it how Little League was played. There used to be 14 in binghamton, one on the north and east, south and west. He thought that wasnt right that more kids should have an opportunity to play so he got together with his buddies from an insurance agencies and a few others and pu have put togethers league and he had four teams on each side of town. Now instead of 60 kids being aboubeing outof place, there wet could play plus its a farm league together so about 400 playing organized baseball, they have a place to go, a place they could go and stay out of trouble. He did that with one pre requisite. You couldnt buy the equipment because he didnt want it to look like he was doing it to feather his own nest so to speak. He started Little League and i dont know how many thousands and thousands have come through that. We are redoing the field and its so great to be able to go back to the field today and see the place that we grew up and had so much fun with. My father was binghamton and always felt the community had to do well in order for him to do well so he told me when i was 13yearsold he was going to put me to work and teach me responsibility. So when i was 13yearsold i went to work in the story about 15 i started working fulltime, summer vacations and christmas vacations. I did that all through high school and i can tell you right now honestly i hated every minute of it. [laughter] i wanted nothing to do with it. I got ready to go off to college and thought im never going back to that business. I remember my father and donna dropped me off at school and we had the National Lampoon vacation Station Wagon with billboard on the side. Ours was white as opposed to green but i remember watching them leave. I didnt want anything to do with the business. I wanted to do Something Else. I remember watching them drive away and the only thing that came into my mind was Martin Luther kings famous speech of free at last, thank god im free at last ive never got to go back to that place. As i got ready to go back my freshman year i got a job as a law clerk i was so proud of it i told my father and going to work, and going to be a law clerk which is like a gophers go for it is going to be there and i was excited. She looked at me and i cant tell you exactly what he said [laughter] but he said you are working in this store. Its what puts food on the table, its why you were going to college, you are working here so i worked there. I worked there again and tim was there by this time and i can tell you that i still hated every minute of it. I wanted nothing to do with it. I get ready to ditch out of college and had no interest in getting into business but my dad got sick. He had a double bypass operation back in 1975 and never quite made it back emotionally or physically from that experience and so all of the time im thinking im going off to work at Price Waterhouse and want to go to law school and i found myself having to come back into the business to help my father who was sick. I was the oldest of five and came back to these stores in binghamton into something happened i dont know if it was six months, eight months, nine months but at some point i fell in love with the business and its a love affair that i talked about so is on fire today. I love getting up in the morning and going to work. I love the business end of the people i work with and i love that it gives us an opportunity to try to make a difference in some things in this world whether it is in the sports piece or firearms piece. If you work in retail, im going to tell you you get to see people at their very best. You see people with their very best and one of the times you can see people a people at theit christmas time. I remember it was around 4 00 in the afternoon Christmas Eve and this woman comes barreling into the store. I said how are you doing can i help you with anything and she said i have to find a gift for my sisterinlaw. I said no problem, we have these sweaters and it took her over to this stack of sweaters we just marked down that were not selling very well. She looked at them and looked at me an and said those are the ugliest sweaters ive ever seen and i looked at her and they said they really are thats why the marked them down but over here we have some others and i looked over at her and shes Still Standing there so we walk back over and that i have some other ones over here. She picked up this ugliest one of the bunch looks at it and says i will take this one. My sisterinlaw is the biggest bitch ive ever met. [laughter] i said Merry Christmas and off she went. [laughter] so, a couple things. Im going to embarrass a couple of people today. Im going to tell you a couple stories about some people in Binghamton Mets hav that had anl impact on my life and is Katie Madigan here . Stand at the second. [applause] going to tell you the Katie Madigan story. I wasnt the best student in the world. Katie, when i told her that, we talked a few years ago and i thought she would say you werent that bad, she looked at me and said yeah you really werent. [laughter] i didnt apply myself as much as i should have. So i was taking french from tv and we were getting ready for the region finals and she said you are not going to pass the finals and i said i know. [laughter] she said listen, i tell you what if you write a paper on a french author, french artist, anything french, three page paper i will exempt you from the final. I said thats great. She said theres one more stipulation. I said what is it, i will write the paper. She looked at me and said that last stipulation you have to promise me you will never take another french class so i never took another french class. Td is the one that pushed me to st. John Fisher College and was a big impact. I think teachers dont realize the impact they have on kids when they are having the impact on them. I know i talk about mr. Feldman who was a teacher at north high and im not sure what ever happened to him but he had a big impact on my life in a public speaking class. I think teachers are so underrated, underpaid, underappreciated. One of my favorite movies is mr. Hollands opus. The teacher had no idea the impact he had on those kids until long after they graduated and he was ready to retire. So katie, thank you very much. [applause] my clicker isnt working very well which means im going to have to embarrass somebody else. Wheglenn small, where is the gl . If it were not for glenn small, we wouldnt be here today. We lost our banking relationship with First City National bank years ago. It was around the savings and loan crisis in 1987. Regulators got really tough and binghamton First City National bank said we cant think with you anymore. We never missed a loan payment, we were never late, cleaned up online at the end of 30 days but they said youve got 60 days to get another loan. We cant think with you any longer. We always were in debt to fund our inventory and all that. Later he said to me theres a guy at the Binghamton Savings Bank named glenn small you should probably talk to him and maybe he can help. So we sat down and i told him kind of what was going on. Glenn and bill brinker from the savings bank stepped up to provide us a line of credit in order for us to stay in business anif it hadnt been for him, the bank taking a chance on us, we wouldnt be here today so thank you very much. We appreciate it. [applause] another thing my father taught me a great lesson about how important sports were two kids and that lesson was taught to me. The kid had come into the store, store when a baseball glove and bolted out. One of the guys brought him back probably 9yearsold and you can tell he came from a family that didnt have an awful lot. He was talking to him ripping on him and my father said ive got it. He put his hand on this young mans shoulder and started talking to him. I was standing maybe 15, 20 feet away watching this thinking i wonder what hes going to say and what hes going to do because i knew exactly what he would do to me if i had done that. So i was watching. He put his hand on his shoulder and said why did you steal this baseball glove. The kid looked at him with these big crocodile tears coming down his face and he just looked at my father and said i just want to play baseball. I just want people to play baseball. My father gave him a couple of life lessons about you cant steal, you need to be good, you shouldnt do that. He put his arm around him, walked into the baseball ill instead pick up a glove, pick out about and pick out a ball, go play baseball and stay out of trouble. We dont know whatever happened to that kid but i suspect its one of the things that these teachers i didnt have a big impact. He went and played baseball. So we have always been really focused on kids whether its what my father did with Little League and teenage baseball and similar thing with many believed what he did with that young man asked whether baseball club. We always felt that sports were so important. Theres so many things going on from a sports standpoint today that these kids cant play. So many budget cuts roughly 4 billion in budget cuts over the last number of years in youth Sports Programs where kids cant play so theyve started what we call our Sports Foundation because sports really matter in a kids life, they need a place to go to feel like they belong so a couple of years ago we went up to alaska to a Girls Hockey League that was going to go defunct. They were not going to be able to play hockey any longer. We went to alaska because for one reason and one reason im a similar to what my father said about you couldnt start buying the equipment from our store, we went to alaska to do this because we ha have zero stores n alaska and we didnt want anybody to think we were doing this to drive our business something to show you this video about four minutes long about these girls in alaska who just want to play hockey and how important it is to them. Hockey is huge. We are all born on skates just about. Ive always looked at the girls on the high school team. My team is my family. The funding disappeared overnight. Approach by the community and we salvaged it for three years but the finances are concerned. The girls have been using the same jerseys for at least four seasons now. I feel like nobody really cares about girls hockey as much. By that end of the season will be in the red so we are thinking we will have to shut the program down. The idea that we couldnt find another funder is devastating socially, academically and devastating for their personal growth. Girls that have College Scholarships on the horizon, we are sending a terrible message. In four to seven years they are going to be working professionals and we are telling them they are not equal. I feel like i failed them. [cheering] hello, everyone. My name is frank and i work at Dicks Sporting Goods. We felt like we had to do something. Teams like yours around the country are not able to play because of a lack of funding and that is a problem. We think its a big problem because all kids should get the chance to play. I can tell that its important to your community. [cheering] so this person we want to give you a special present. [cheering] via the Dicks Sporting Goods foundation. [cheering] follow me into the locker room. We have another special surprise. You get new jerseys, helmets and stick. I thought that this was going to be my last year. Im so thankful for you and what you are doing. Were just cant explain how happy i am. [applause] these programs are so important to these kids. Kids need a place to go after school. They need a place where they can be with their friends, a place where they feel like they belong and they feel like they need a place they can find their selfesteem. They need a place where they can be mentors by these coaches. A lot of times they have more of an impact on these to get their homework done off academic probation because they make the decisions most important of these kids and thats we will get to play on friday night. Its hard to grow up today i think. Its harder to be between 13 and 16, 17, 18yearsold today than it was when a lot of us were growing up. Kids today absolutely need to find a place they can find their selfesteem. A lot of places having these issues in inne the inner citiesh these programs being cut, they are probably not going to find their selfesteem in the classroom, they are going to find because they can shoot a basketball, hit a baseball, saying in a school play. Its not just sports but other Extracurricular Activities. Its so important to have a place for these kids to go and right now, this video is a little older but this 27 of high schools in the country that dont have a Sports Program. If you think about that, it is catastrophic for these kids they have no place to go. They get out of 2 30 in the afternoon and where are they going to go and what are they going to do. It was a movie a few years ago callecalled weak speaking aboute doomsday budget in philadelphia because to many schools and extracurricular programs, we also many teachers and combined schools. They complained these two schools, rivals that were put together and this teacher who was 26 years was laid off came back to coach from a football fl standpoint because he knew how important it was to be able to play and he didnt want them on the streets because one of his best friends was caught by gun n violence was 16 so he came back to coach these kids and we filmed them and replace. At home, in the classroom, practice, on the streets, at games. You watch them being mentors by this coach that loves these kids. He watched them practice and think if they are not at practice, whats going on. You cant get to a good place. Its so important for them to have a place. We had a board of education meeting which i was shocke shocy listened to the board of education. One of these kids that played football since without a football team, im not going to school. If you think about that, but that does to kids who leave school because theres not a Sports Program or other Extracurricular Activities or because they find their selfesteem theory t and be part of a group think about what that does five, ten, 15 years from now you cant get to a good place. These programs are so important and we are trying to fight to do this. We partnered with a company where is the team needs funding they can signup and if they raise half of what they need through bake sales, car washes, whatever they need to do, we will find the other half and there is a lot of teams that dont quite what they need and we find them anyway. Over the last four or five years weve touched a million kids still able to play sports that wouldnt have been able to play without this and we didnt do it alone. We have partners like nike and adidas and others focusing on this right now. Ive always felt our kids are the countrie countrys most pres natural resource. We dont spend enough time or money on them, we dont talk about them, they dont get talked about in the National Political debate out there, not to be cliche but the kids are the future and we need to find a way to educate every single one whether they live in a rural area, suburban, urban, innercity, wherever it is we have to keep them in school and one way to keep them in school is to help keep the Sports Programs going. The other thing we talk about is what weve done from the fire on standpoint. Parkland had in unbelievable impact on me. Weve been in the gun business since i can remember. My father started. Ive been around guns b guns bye life, sold them, shock them, they were always kind of Second Nature to me that what was happening with gun violence in the country today with these kids and what happened in sandy hook we decided to take assault style weapons out of the stores. [applause] and we got a lot of blowback from the. The. It didnt compare to what happened after parkland. Im going to show you a video that we did that was for internal use only that we were showing t the people that worked in the company, but about this and how we feel and the stance we took but im going to show you the video on our thoughts on the gun violence peace. When we say we are part of the communities we serve, what do we mean . We mean there are stories we want to be part of and stories we want not to be part of. We did everything by the book we were supposed to do from a legal standpoint and somehow he was able to buy a gun from a still. We dont want to be part of this story any longer. 100 students [inaudible] we need action. As a country we failed our children. Maybe the adults are used to saying it is what it is that people continually end up dead. We took a stand that demonstrated leadership knowing that there would be controversy grew to a vision that has made our Company Different from our commitment to the youth in our communities. We are taking these guns out of our stores permanently. The kids can be brave enough to organize like this weekend to. Our communities responded. I want to thank your dad for what he did. They wont sell assault weapons at all. They made a similar move following. They are getting negative impact. They are going to turn their back on a fair amount of the market. Its not saying you cant have your guns. Its saying we have to do better. I am happier because of what they announced this morning. Tousled style rifles pulled from the shelves are being destroyed. This move shock to some, pleased some and disappointed others. Not sitting well with the nra. Its about meaningful change. We Hope Congress will come together with the intent of finding a solution to the problem. This is about doing what it takes to make communities as safe as possible today and for generations to come. [applause] i still have a hard time talking about this. What w we did as we said we wouldnt sell a false style rifles in any store ever again. We wouldnt sell high capacity magazines ohighcapacitymagazine under 21yearsold. As we made that announcement, we were invited by the families to come down and meet with them. I promised i wouldnt do this. Going to talk about an emotional day. I think today in the country, rational people argue their points irrationally. Rational people argue their points irrationally. My wife and i went down and talked to those families who lost a child or spouse and not one of them said to ban all guns, not one of them was a unreasonable. All they said is we need to find reasonable gun reform so that what happened to my child or my family never happens to anybody else. That gave me hope that we could get something done in washington because if there was ever a group of people who are rational people who have the right to argue their position is irrationally, it was this group of people and they didnt do that. So i went to washington and sat down with a number of senators and congressmen and you want to talk about rational people are doing your rationally, it was so disappointing, surprising and maddening that we cant get anything done on this particular issue. They should talk to the woman that i talked to that day. If you are a parent you cant even imagine what this has to be like. I sat with this woman who looked at me and said its been a month since my son was killed. I go into his room every night and sit on his bed and talk to him. Imagine that. And washington cant even do background checks . 90 of the people believe there should be background checks. Weve got to do something about this. I try to talk to congress about the inconsistencies in the gun laws. I talked to a couple of them and told them some of these inconsistencies and a lot of the response was are you sure. Yes, senator im sure. You have to be 21yearsold to buy a handgun from a licensed dealer like us. You can buy that assault style weapon that was used you can buy that each beat team. Hb team. It makes no sense. You need a background check to buy a gun on the internet. If i want to buy a gun from somebody in pennsylvania, background check. In pittsburgh if i want to buy a gun over the internet from somebody that lives in philadelphia, no background check, by the gun and off you go. We need to change these and distant seas. One of the things the families said when i left that morning which is the day that i will never forget, i asked them what would you like me to do and they said we would like you to keep this conversation going and not give up. And i promised i would do that so whenever i get an opportunity like this, i take it to try to talk about this. There are three reasons why i wrote the book. One was to talk about entrepreneurs that are starting a business that your business isnt going to go in a straight line. I talk about this is unfortunate enough to be on a College Campus to talk about these kids and your career nor your business is going in a straight line. There will be ups and downs. If you try to start a business you will have good days, bad days and really bad days. He will have some of those moments that you are doing what am i doing how can this succeed . Im just worn out, but youve got to keep it going and one of the reasons i wrote the book, sam walton wrote a number of books he talked in his books he was very honest. I cant believe some of the things you talked about, and sam walton did that come each of the ups and downs he had. He started his business three times before he finally got it right and in a way that was inspirational for me when we were having a difficult time and almost went out of business twice. I told you about one through no fault of our own and another when we were in pittsburgh and the reason we almost went out of business is because i was stup stupid. We grew too fast. I wrote so that other people might have that inspiration to stick with it if they can. The second reason was for the sports matter peace and how important this is for our kids. That alaskan hockey league, those girls were not going to be able to play the next year. Now it is still going into that next year both went to the national championship. Imagine that. They would have had the rug pulled from under them and they wouldnt have gone to the national championship. That is pretty awesome. And the last thing is that the firearm peace and what we need to do great on the standpoint to get reasonable gun reform to try to stop some of the senseless killings. Ive often said when people said to me, and some of you have heard me say this if we do what you want to do its not going to stop these Mass Shootings. The answer is you are right that if we do what we wanted to give they never could have bought a gun. He was too young. She couldnt have bought that gun and it may not stop all the Mass Shootings but i firmly believe that if it saves one life, it is worth it. We have to find a way to get that done. So i did this in spit part of te reason was to continue to fulfill the commitment to those that lost their title is that we would keep this conversation going. With that, there is one last video that i want to show around the sports matter peace and then we can open up for questions if we still have time. This is a quick one foundation put this together to talk about whats happening that funding is taking sports away from the kids. For the last video. Unfortunately weve got him bad news. Due to the budget shortfalls, the panthers Baseball Program we regret to inform you do to budget shortfalls is indefinitely suspended. I wish it wasnt so. To whom it may concern. To whom it may concern. If we kid gets the chance to play. [applause] i think we all agree every kid deserves the chance to play and with that we will open up. Any questions . [applause] if you have a question if you would raise your hand if we have some microphones we will bring around before we send you off on the rest of your day. Im from binghamton new york. I live in fort worth texas. I was a kid with no money. I went to your dads store and he was advertising. He said why dont you quit calling on me and i said i cant youve got to advertise in the binghamton paper. The moral of the story is dont ever give up. I agree. [applause] thank you very much for the foundation and the work that you are doing to help kids. By way of providence chicago baltimore sports was such an important factor in my familys life growing up and going to college in forming my values so i really can identify with what youre doing anyou are doing ane importance. The issue where our institutions are spending money that is not on sports but something tells, not on education but Something Else is pervasive and i think the issue of the people that are supposedly rational but acting irrationally for doing the same thing on a bunch of other issues, so i guess the question is it seems lik like a School Funding issuthis wholefunding ie in society and i wonder if you can comment. The world that you and i grew up in is totally different and i think maybe not as good today as it was then. Thank you. I think it is a real issue and part of the solution is we dont do in the country today so we have to find a way to the Public Sector and private sector come together to solve these problems. We have the Public Sector they dont want to talk to the private sector. If we can find a way to the private sectodo theprivate sectr together to solve some of these problems we can get a lot of themselves. Companies like us and nike and others that want to focus on the arts some will find their selfesteem because they can sing in a school play or they are in the band they just need a place to go after school. Weve got to stop this big divide between the Public Sector and private sector. Theres businesses out there that really want to help, whether its us or a number of other businesses that we can find a way to get a partnership between the public and private sector and that is this issue here confronting us. Its not as good now as it was when we were growing up, you might be right but the point is we shouldnt resign ourselves to that fact. We should say what are we going to do to make it better and gives these kids an opportunity if we dont educate our kids have a big problewehave a big pe road. Ive always felt that income inequality is one of the biggest issues we have in the country today but i think its misdiagnosed. The root cause of income inequality i think his educational inequality and until we fix this across the entire system, rural, suburban areas, the root cause of this needs to come together to solve the problem because it is all of our problems. Does morality have a part in your equation x. I think we all should be moral. Its something we all need to be aware of and i like to think we all did the right thing. I dont think its hard to do the right thing. Sometimes the consequences but i think its always easy to do the right thing and i hope that based on these issues we have raised we are doing the right thing. We talked about this but if we had a mulligan to do it all over again we would do it all over again and never think twice. Final question. This isnt really a question but just a comment on behalf of all the mothers in the room i want to thank you for your courage and for doing what weve called service above self. I want to pledge that anything we can do to help you in making a decision that wasnt necessarily the best financial move for you, you earned it so much more and a lot of this our respect and w we thank you and e are so proud of you and your family. [applause] on behalf of the Binghamton University i want to thank you for being here but more for your leadership. We have a lot of educational leaders in the building in this room and as we thought that these samtalk to thesesame issue the chief executive officer of this Great Corporation be one of those who is concerned so we thank you for that and also want to thank all of you for being here today. If you havent gotten a chance to pick up your copy of the book please do so outside. I do want to mention all the proceeds, this may not surprise you all the hits on these books go to the foundation. We do have some left in the lobby if you havent gotten the chance also, just if you are interested in membership, we would encourage you to think about Binghamton University. Our next event, the invitations are in the mail and a soulsearching musical thats what it is and we hope that you are able to join us for the preview from the director of the play. Thank you all for being here today. [applause]