Since the beginning, MEE has always continued to press for progress in the face of obstacles. The past year was a challenging and demanding one, with the national economic crisis. The public sector took the biggest hit, as the Federal Stimulus package expired. Public health funding, particularly focused on prevention (MEE's sweet spot) was slashed at the federal, state and city levels, even while health disparities continued to grow for Americans living in poverty.

We met this challenging business environment head-on, striving toward our goals through strategic and operational shifts. MEE focused on charting a new future by adjusting our business course. We implemented cost-cutting measures and found efficiencies in our accounting and project-management practices. We also invested in ourselves for the long term, for example, by expanding our vision of how we deliver our community mobilization services. In two cities, we demonstrated success in using a trauma-informed approach to bolster underserved communities. In the Chicago area, we supported youth violence prevention by strengthening the adult safety net and promoting protective factors. In Washington, D.C., we began to reduce stigmas associated with youth suicide by engaging peer "bystander" and local service providers.

As we looked at our revenue streams and portfolio of services, we saw opportunities to diversify them, creating stability and improving our competitive advantage. This year, we are seeing the fruits of our labor. MEE is on the rebound.

We see diversity in our revenues. We have gone from three large-scale businesses to four, taking our train-the-trainer community mobilization model to scale. Our client sources have expanded beyond the public/health sector to more public/private collaborations and to urban media/entertainment. With the launch of NStar, we will leverage the innovations of social media and other online strategies, augmenting our traditional offline outreach to continue to impact hard-to-reach urban markets. Our topic areas have expanded to include not only many areas of health, but also critically-important K-12 and post-secondary education. And we have moved from projects with small budgets and short duration to multi-year projects with six- and seven-figure budgets.

We have been striving towards leveraging the value of our many partnerships through maximizing the potential of existing alliances and fostering new relationships. I am confident that we have built a solid foundation for strategic growth going forward. I believe that we have emerged from the toughest economic times in our history as a better company. Our aim this year and beyond is to continue the progress we have made.