 Good morning. My name is Eric Walsh. I'm a deputy city manager and I'd like to thank you for joining us this morning for this to celebrate this exciting and much-anticipated ceremony out here at Bracken Ridge Park. It's the groundbreaking of our new adoption center and campus. The campus is going to further our commitment to encourage responsible pet ownership in this community. Families will be able to attend the adoption center, adopt a shelter pet, visit our spay neuter clinic, get their pets spay neutered and attend multiple events that will be held at the pavilion here on the on the facility. We're really excited with the partnership that we've got with Petco and a number of special guests this morning. We're looking forward to continuing that relationship with Petco, which is a huge corporate sponsor and a leader in animal welfare. Before I ask the mayor to come up and say a couple of words, I did want to recognize we do have two council members in the audience. Councilman Reed Williams from District 8 and Councilwoman Elisa Chan from District 9. Mayor, would you like to come up? Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Well, you know, the beautiful day fits this joyous occasion. Our groundbreaking of the Pole Jolly Center for Animal Adoptions here in the Bracken Ridge Park area. I wanted to start off, Eric, by thanking you and all the folks on the city staff for the hard work that you all have done, the great work that you've done to enhance animal adoptions and improve the live release rate at the city. Let's give them a round of applause because they've worked very hard. And that leadership starts right at the top with our city manager, Cheryl Scully, who's been such an effective advocate for animals, but more importantly has invested the resources and seen to it that the partnerships are created so that more animals in our community are adopted so that more of them who enter our animal care facility leave. I also, of course, want us to give a big round of applause to our friends from Petco, Jim Myers, Brian Devine, Charlie Piscotello, and, of course, the namesake of this center, Paul Jolly. Petco for many years has, first of all, been making great products that make pets very happy throughout the United States and the world, and here in San Antonio. They've also made a great investment in our city, created hundreds of jobs in San Antonio that are contributing to the health of the local economy, but they've also consistently shown that they have a big heart for animals, and that they're on a mission to make sure that animal welfare is a top priority in every community that they do business in. And they have contributed together, the Petco Foundation and the Corporation, $1 million to this facility, and let's give them a big round of applause for that commitment. And I want to thank my colleagues, Councilman Williams and Councilwoman Chan, you know, eight years ago, before they were on the council, and unfortunately I was, at the time, San Antonio was taken aback by a series of articles, Good Journalism in the San Antonio Express News, that paged San Antonio as having one of the highest rates of euthanasia for animals of any city, anywhere in the country. And that shocked a lot of us to resolve to do something about it. But it wasn't until we got a city manager with good city staff, with council members and with great partners like these and Sally Scott and a lot of our adoption partners and rescue partners that we could actually start making progress toward our goal of ensuring that San Antonio becomes a no kill city. And so last year, our live release rate was 31%. This year we're on track so that will be 59%. Almost a doubling of that rate. We're making tremendous progress. Animal adoptions have gone up by 37% and animal rescues have gone up by 316%. And that's only going to get stronger with this facility when it's up and running. So congratulations. Thank you very much to Petco. Let's get this done. Thank you. Thanks, Mayor. Before I ask Cheryl to come up, I'd like to echo a couple of things that the mayor said. Much of the progress made over the last year is really in due to the partnerships that we've got with organizations such as San Antonio Pets Alive, the Animal Defense League, San Antonio Humane Society, MISTI's Haven, the smaller rescues that that we work with. On the spay neuter front, spay SA, SNPSA, SNAP, everybody working together collectively for the same goal. And it's really gelled over the last year. And it's a fruitful, bountiful relationship that we hope to continue to foster going forward. So thank you very much for what you've done over the last year. With that, I'll ask Cheryl to come up and say a couple of words. Good morning. Thank you very much, Eric and Mayor Castro and to our friends from Petco. Thank you so much for this public private partnership. I want to thank our Animal Care Advisory Board as well. They they work and meet on a regular basis, helping us with policy recommendations to the city council and your dedication is much appreciated. We thank you so much for your help. What a beautiful morning this is on a very historic site. Our groundbreaking this morning, as many of you know, this Animal Care Services has a long history here at this location in Bracken Ridge Park, operating at 210 Toletta since the 1940s. So it's so appropriate that we're here this morning. For more than 70 years of change, what began as a simple rabies control program has evolved into our San Antonio Animal Care Services Department, one of the most progressive Animal Care agencies in the country now, and one that finds homes for thousands of our community's pets every year. As the mayor said, we weren't known as that just a few years ago, but so much progress we've made with a great team of staff working very hard over the past several years with our Animal Care Advisory Board and our partners in the community. Thank you so much. And that's why we're thrilled with this public private partnership and the investment Petco is making in our community. Like the city Petco believes San Antonio can become the largest no kill city in the nation. And we're getting closer every day. More than 6000 pet adoptions in fiscal year 2012 at our Animal Care Services offices alone, a record for the city of San Antonio. This new $5.4 million facility is a brick and mortar symbol of that no kill policy. This new center is expected to add at least 3000 more adoptions annually. And this is our mission. We cannot achieve it alone. And that's where Petco comes in. Petco and their foundation have given Animal Care Services the generous $1 million donation. And this donation will help fund the High Volume Pet Partner Program, which is helping our Animal Care Services department reach its no kill goal by partnering with various animal welfare agencies in the community. This will benefit the members of our community, those with two legs, as well as the all of those with four legs. The Paul Jolly Center for Animal Adoptions, the the Petco, Spain Neuter Clinic, and Event Pavilion are all dedicated to saving today's strays where so many of yesterday's abandoned pets spent their last few days. I can think of no better symbol of our shared commitment to finding homes for all of our community's unwanted dogs and cats. We are so grateful for this investment. And so as city manager and as a card carrying Petco customer for more than 15 years myself, I want we do want to sincerely thank Petco this morning. And thank you, Sally Scott. I know that you worked very hard individually and with the Animal Care Services advisory board to get us to this moment as well as the former chair of the ACS board. Our new chair, Mona Thakston. Good luck to you. We'll work with you as we undertake this facility. Mike Frisbee is here this morning, our capital constructions director. He's going to make sure this gets built on time and under budget. And and most importantly, all the Animal Care Services staff who are out here in the audience each day toiling out in the community. I've been out there spent a few hours with them, myself, myself going door to door talking with our community about the importance of registration, licensing, vaccination, and responsible pet ownership. So all of you team Animal Care Services, could you just wave your hand? We want to say thank you for your day in and day out work in the community. Kathy Davis is our new director. Kathy is here this morning and preceding her was Joe Angelo. Joe's here today because I know he worked really hard with the team to do some work to get us on the right track with a revision to our strategic plan. Joe and and the team worked on that with our Animal Care Services advisory board. I just want to take a moment to thank them. Most importantly, we're here today to celebrate a new beginning, a new beginning for San Antonio's Animal Care Services in partnership with Petco. And so to the Petco executives and the entire Petco team, we say a big thank you. Thank you show. Let's ask Mr. Jim Myers, the CEO of Petco who was instrumental in this partnership to come up and say a couple of words. Okay, I can't tell you how excited we are here to be here this morning. We feel particularly proud of our commitment to the community and think this is a great opportunity. It's a privilege to be here this morning for that to be present for this groundbreaking, an important event in in San Antonio for the animals. I'd like to thank Mayor Castro and City Manager Scully for joining us here this morning as well as our partnership both with Joe Angelo in the past and Kathy Davis in the future in planning with this event for today. You know, it was just over a year ago that Petco opened our new support center here in San Antonio. We have a long history in the state of Texas. It's actually our second largest market with over 80 stores with over half a dozen here locally in the community. It is our second biggest location and we selected it as the place for us to expand our National Support Center footprint as well. At that time we've been active in the community for some time and now just a year later we have over 200 associates now working at our support center here locally. A large number are here today. If you could raise your hand if you're with the Support Center. Thank you. We're really proud of that commitment to the community. Excited about the talent that's available and I would say that we expect over the next few years to more than double that number and see 400 different positions here in the San Antonio community. So we're an active employer in that front as well. At Petco we have a vision for healthier pets, happier people in a better world. We are active on all those fronts every day with the products we have for the pets at our stores. What we do on behalf of our associates and what we do on behalf of the community. This is one of those manifestations of super support on our part. Last year we donated $50,000 to fund the San Antonio Animal Care Service mobile adoption unit and that was a first important start in our local commitment. And now as has been mentioned earlier on a 50-50 basis between Petco the company and the Petco Foundation. We have committed this million dollars to help fund the Paul Jolly Center for Animal Adoptions here in San Antonio. We know this community is just as committed as we are to finding homes for the animals. Everyone feels it in their heart. It's about dedicating those resources and providing the means for people to act on what their personal beliefs are. And we're excited to play a role in that part. It's also a very special pleasure of ours to be able to name this in the honor of our long-term leader of the Petco Foundation, Paul Jolly, who exemplifies what it's about to be committed to the welfare of the animals. So with that I'm very excited to be here today and join you all and look forward to a long-term relationship with the city of San Antonio. Thank you. Thank you Jim. Next we'll ask Mr. Brian Devine, the chairman of the board of Petco. Talk a little bit about the foundation and Mr. Jolly. Thank you Jim and good morning everyone. I've known Paul Jolly since I joined the company in 1990. When I arrived he was actually employee number 20 in our company. So he had been working in Petco for 11 years even before I met him. He joined in 1978 as a sales clerk, worked his way up. By the time I joined the company he was running all the Southern California stores. So those stores in San Diego, Orange County and Los Angeles area. Back then, even long before I ever went in our stores, we actually, before we had a foundation, before we had all this fundraising, we already, animals were a top priority in all of our stores already. So we collected donations from people, we had car washes, we had bakery sales, midnight madness where they'd spin a wheel and all the money we'd go to charity, to the animal charities, and we routinely held adoptions in every fun, fun events in all of our stores even before, as I say, Jim and I joined the company. But it was very, so this informal things that they were doing was part of the culture when I joined the company. So in a real sense the foundation existed even before there was the foundation. But so when I arrived, I learned the culture, actually came home to my wife after visiting one of the stores where they're holding adoptions and said, because we had already adopted two animals earlier before I ever came with the company, and said, I'm gonna love this company. So that was sort of my, because it was a, obviously had the absolute right culture. So actually we continued to do things right and actually started donating millions of dollars before we had a foundation. I'm an old 60s activist, so I just thought that was okay, and then somebody pointed out that we were a public company, we probably should have a foundation. The good news is, luckily we had Paul Jolly, whose commitment and passion really for helping animals shine through so brightly that I knew he was the right person in the right place at the right time, really to set up our foundation and to formalize the great animal support work that we already were doing within the company. So when we actually founded the foundation, PECA foundation in February of 1999, we quickly expanded our animal welfare activities to all stores across the country, and that approach really continues today. For 13 years Paul Jolly has been at the foundation's helm, our first and only executive director, and he has steered a course that has made an incredible positive impact on millions and millions of animals and the people who love and need those animals in their lives. Paul is the kindest, most loving, caring person I've ever known, and it's been my privilege really to watch him change the way that animals are treated throughout the country. He changed my life and countless other peoples, but most important, the animals' lives. He has forged an organization committed to the to the four Rs, reducing the number of animals needlessly euthanized, rescuing animals in harm's way when disasters strike and promoting the adoption of companion animals from local animal welfare groups, rehabilitating animals with behavior problems through training and counseling, and rejoicing really in the power of the human-animal bond and the benefits it provides to both humans and companion animals. The PECA foundation is a fantastic organization and as you may know we recently celebrate an incredible milestone of having raised more than a hundred million dollars since 1999 to support the great work of more than 8,000 local animal welfare organizations across the country. And today's groundbreaking for what will be a truly great facility is a fitting tribute to Paul's leadership in the PECA foundation's important work over the past 13 years. So anyway, thank you and let me introduce Charlie Piscitello, our chief people officer and president of the PECA Foundation Board of Directors. Thank you, Brian. Good morning, everyone. As Jim mentioned earlier, it's an honor for all of us at PECA to be involved in this important work. And particularly for the PECA Foundation, it's a privilege for me to explain why we're naming the center after Paul Jolly. Many of you know Paul has been the executive director and he continues to be today and that's true. As Brian mentioned, he's the only executive director we've had since 1999 when we started. He's also a dear friend, dear friend to all of us in the company and he's been an extremely loyal and dedicated PECA associate for almost 35 years. You know I met Paul when I started in 2007 and I can tell you no one in the organization has taught me more about compassion for animals, helping the communities where we work and live, and ultimately being part of the solution to what's a very complex, very large, very broad problem in society. But Paul's work to help the animals started long before he ever came to Petco. We're proud to say that in his time with the company and through his work with the foundation, he's been personally responsible for saving millions of animals lives around the country. Under his watch, we've raised over a hundred million dollars, as Brian mentioned, and this year between the company and the foundation's partnership, we'll adopt over 400,000 animals in our stores to loving homes. A great accomplishment. It's been about 20 months since we learned that Paul was diagnosed with ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. That was heartbreaking news to the entire family at Petco and to the animal welfare community nationwide. The opportunity to name this new facility, one where so many animals will be saved, was particularly timely, but a really easy choice for us at Petco. On behalf of Petco, the Petco Foundation, and more than 8,000 animal welfare organizations across the country, we've chosen to name the facility after Paul, the Paul Jolly Center for Animal Adoptions, in honor and recognition of his lifetime commitment to animal welfare. Now unfortunately, the nature of Paul's illness prevents him from being here today, but he sent a message in his absence, and he's asked me to share it with all of you. He's also able to view this today through a link, so Paul, we know you're watching, and we're very proud. When it was first proposed that this adoption center be named after me, I hesitated. I've always been a traditional sort of person. I thought it was more appropriate to name a building or street for someone after their passing as a way to honor their work, and while I realized that my life has a shorter expiration date than most, I still paused. Admittedly, it took some convincing by Charlie Pichettallo, Reg Holden, and others, but after much processing and discussion with my partner Rick and the Petco Foundation team, the prevailing factor that led me to say yes was it was for the sake of posterity. I envisioned potential pet parents walking into this center hoping to make that connection with a homeless animal. I imagined homeless animals scared, hurting, and unsure having a state of the art sanctuary while they await their second chance at a new life. I saw them both coming together with hope and promise. This is what will make San Antonio special. This is what will help make it a magical city, and I remembered the animal welfare heroes in my life who've served as inspirations to me. I'm forever grateful to them for imparting to me their passion and their commitment to making a difference for animals. This building may have my name on it, but it's really named for all of them that guided my journey in humane work. I thought it was about, I thought about the enormous progress that a city like San Antonio has made to become a no-kill community. It's my hope that this adoption center will be a beacon and a symbol for local animal welfare leaders and others that are championing this cause. I hope they'll be reminded of the ultimate goal when they repeat my name and know that if I could, I would be there fighting the good fight with them also. Each animal adopted will be a visible reminder of the importance of aspiring to greater things, the importance of saving lives, the difference that can be made. That's why I agreed to naming this adoption center and that's why I want you to join me in celebrating the dawning of a new day for all of us, for animals and people in San Antonio. Thank you for this honor. May the edifice always stand as a symbol that this community and nation are places where we can all make a difference. In closing, I'd like to leave you with the short poem that I wrote and I hope it will be remembered by my friends and family when I'm gone. The poem is entitled Still. When I leave you to inhabit another world, grieve not. Nor speak of me with tears, but laugh and talk of me as if I were beside you. Please do not let the thought of me be sad. There are so many things that I still want to do, so many things I still want to say, so many animals that still need help and remember this that I did not fear. It was leaving while there was so much work still to do that was the hardest to face. We cannot see beyond, still this I know, I worked hard and I tried to do the best that was in me. I hope I made a difference, Paul Jolly. So Paul, you're in our hearts today. We honor you, we celebrate you and your life and your commitment to animal welfare and it's befitting that this facility will carry your name into the future. Thank you all very much. Thank you Charlie. Before we move to the groundbreaking, I did want to thank one person. During the design phase of this project we had a number of public meetings and very well attended. A lot of people gave their input and Miss Jan Succi who's over here, she's going to kill me for pointing this out. Jan made some great comments and suggestions that actually shifted the way we looked at the part of the part of the campus and Jan I wanted to thank you for that and I appreciate you being involved. So with that we'll go to the groundbreaking. All right welcome everybody who's watching online today for this momentous event. We've broken ground officially for the Paul Jolly Center for Animal Adoptions here at Brackenridge Park in San Antonio and for all of us at Petco we couldn't be more proud of this moment or more proud of Paul and his lifelong commitment to animal welfare. So Paul, we're all with you today, you're in our hearts and we look forward to having this building carry your name well into the future in the honor of all the important work done in animal welfare by you, by others and by all the people who care so deeply about animals like we do at Petco. Thanks very much.