 Well, good afternoon everyone. Thank you all for waiting. Let's hear it for Mariachi Corazón de San Antonio. Aren't they awesome? Mayor, this is the young talent that you're talking about and all the things you say. This is our future and they're shining bright today. Well, thank you all for being here. Thank you for your patience. I want to go ahead and kick off the program and want to start by thanking my sister chambers here in San Antonio for helping us partner to put this event on. Those chambers are the Alamo Asian American Chamber of Commerce, the Alamo City Chamber of Commerce, hooray! The North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, hooray! The South San Antonio Chamber of Commerce and the West San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. Colleagues, thank you all for being here and for your sponsorship and partnership. We also have several VIP sponsors that helped us put all these things together, helped us pay for the audio visual and everything. We want to thank them too. The VIP sponsors are a novel idea, Amagie Bank, AT&T, the Boeing Company, Branch, Banking and Trust, BB&T, Brook City Base, Brook's Development Authority, Capital One Bank, Port San Antonio, Red McCombs Automotive Team, Southwest Airlines Company, Texas A&M University San Antonio and Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Texas. Please join me in a round of applause for our VIP sponsors. And we have several reception sponsors that I'd also like to thank for their help. They are Advanced Interior Technologies Limited, Bracewell and Giuliani, Krista Santa Rosa Healthcare, Elizabeth de la Portilla, Grand Hyatt, Lockheed Martin Commercial Engine Solutions, Norton Rolls-Fulbright, S&B Infrastructure and Vickering Associates. Please join me in a round of applause for our reception sponsors. And finally, a very major thank you go out to all of our partners that help, other partners that help put this together, including the City of San Antonio Convention and Sports Facilities, HEB, Illusions that's helped us with the stage and all the things you see behind me, La Gloria, Mariachi Corazones San Antonio, PSAV Presentation Services, The Arcade Group and True Flavors Catering. Let's give them a round of applause as well, please. All right. So, Mayor Castro, I can't tell you how proud we all are of you and the work that you've done here for all of us in San Antonio. You know, I had the honor and privilege of serving with you on the City Council and saw very clearly then the commitment you had to public service, the tenacity and the time that you put in to being a good council member and you've taken that to the next level as mayor. The last five years have been fantastic for this community. You know, when people always say that the job that you want to do is you want to leave a place better than when you found it, well, I can tell you without a doubt and I know ladies and gentlemen, you'll agree Julian Castro has left the City of San Antonio better than he found it and we're all very grateful for that. So this is not a goodbye. This is a thank you and farewell. So the way we say in Spanish, no nos despidimos, verdad? We don't say goodbye. We say farewell because we know you'll be back. We know you're gonna do fantastic things for housing and urban development throughout the country and model the things you've done in San Antonio. And so we're extremely excited and with that, ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming the mayor of San Antonio, Texas and soon to be secretary of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Julian Castro. Thank you so much. Good evening. Richard, first of all, let me begin by thanking you and the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce for hosting this wonderful event and more importantly for just the excellent job that you all have done in representing our city over the years and that you have done in the way that the Chamber has contributed to the prosperity that we've enjoyed. I also want to thank each of the chambers who helped sponsor this evening. Y'all make a difference in the communities that you represent and let's give them a big round of applause. I want to especially thank the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and recognize them because they were just recently accredited with the highest accreditation that a chamber can reach in the United States. Congratulations to the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. I also want to want to thank my colleagues, several of whom are here this evening, folks that I'm serving with now and folks that I started serving with when I was a 26 year old councilman a few years ago. People who are public servants in the truest sense of the word and who have made a great impact on the community and I wanted to recognize former mayor Cisneros and councilwoman Mary Alice Cisneros for their contribution to our community. Of course, Henry did tremendous things as mayor and as HUD secretary and so there's a great lesson there to be learned. Thank you for being here and I wanted to just say thank you as well to the city staff to Cheryl and all the city staff who work so hard every day to make our city organization the most professional I think in the United States. I also want to thank my staff. Where are my staff at? Raise it. There they are. All of them. Thank y'all. Anybody who's part of an organization knows that it's not one person that makes things successful. It's a whole team and I have been very blessed over the last few years to have a fantastic team and they can tell you that I didn't tell them thank you enough along the way but I did recognize their talent and their ability and all of my success really has been their success and so I appreciate it. I also am very grateful to have here my family with the exception of the two most important people in my life, my wife and my daughter Erica and Karina are in Hawaii right now. I'm on vacation and because I'm trying to finish a book by the time I started HUD. I'm not I'm here but I couldn't do any of this without their help and their support and their love and hopefully hopefully I'll get to express that again and again over the years and to my mother and father who are here and my stepmother and my sister-in-law Anna and to Joaquin who's not here I'm going to get to see him a little bit more these days in the days to come and to all of you thank you not just for the support that y'all have given me over the years but more importantly for everything that you do in your professional life and in your personal life to make this city one of the greatest cities in the world to make San Antonio a city of prosperity and also a city of character and of compassion and a city that truly can say that we have a heart of gold when I go out and talk about our city the thing that I'm most proud to talk about is The fact that we still have a sense of community in this place that even though we're a city of 1.4 million people we still have a sense that We're working towards something together and that lends itself to an optimism that exists in San Antonio that I haven't seen in any other big city in the United States and those things that Compassion and that sense of optimism and that sense of community is probably the most precious gift that we can have going forward The most special day that I ever had serving as mayor was last summer in August when I got to stand at the front of the pre-k for SA Center on medical drive and welcome little four-year-olds that were coming to class for the first time for pre-k and their parents and The parents seemed nervous and some of them were crying But the kids seemed very excited. Well, some of them were crying too, but They mostly seemed excited If I've tried to do anything as mayor it has been To look beyond the things that we can throw a stone at or that we can say we've accomplished Within a couple of years and to think about those things that are longer lasting like the education of a young person or the health and fitness of our senior citizens and the sense of community that we Strengthen in our city and I believe that going forward the most important thing that we can do as a city is to continue the vision That folks have set as part of SA 2020 to create a brainpower community That is the liveliest city in the United States to continue to make investments in our brainpower in our economic development and job creation and In making San Antonio the kind of place that belongs to everyone that people want to live in and work in and Visit over and over and over again and y'all are going to be a huge part of that Leaving for me is very bittersweet because I love San Antonio When I went away when Joaquin and I were 18 years old we couldn't wait to get back and a few years later we did come back and I have No doubt that in a couple of years from now. I will be back and I look forward to Celebrating all the progress that our community makes in the years to come and to enjoy in this city They're calling it home for many years God willing And I look forward to seeing y'all again and again I also hope that folks if they make it up to DC will give me a holler Y'all have a friend in Washington. Just don't come all knocking at the same time I'm excited about the new challenge. I went into public service because Joaquin and I were blessed With wonderful opportunity in our lives To go to the public schools here and then to go off to college into law school and to get to reach our dreams becoming lawyers and going into public service and That's what I love to see for other folks and I see the work that I'll do at HUD as an extension of that and So before I say goodbye though, I do want to say one last thing which is a big. Thank you to my mother The first thing that I hung up On my wall when I was able to move in to the office was her poster from when she ran in 1971 and Of course, she didn't win back then but because of her work and the work of so many folks of different backgrounds and different ideologies, I think that Not only did young folks like me win But San Antonio one and America has won. Thank you