 As an Army captain in 1994, I earned a PhD in chemical engineering here at Purdue where I was afforded the opportunity to learn about the importance of an advanced degree for the Army in terms of applying advanced technology and innovation for our military service. With PMRI, we've proven great success with leveraging military officers with some of our most promising research led by young faculty members at Purdue. To date, we've recruited over 100 military officers from each military service that have afforded us the opportunity to reinforce that important research that Purdue is doing for defense and security of our nation. Our approach attempts to strengthen the military not just by writing a report, a technical paper, or a research paper, but by trying to reinforce the transition of the project with moving the military officer back into military service, which is one of our key points with Purdue Military Research Institute. We want the officers to go back to the military to implement the research that they've learned about here at Purdue. With partners from industry, alumni, and friends, we hope that you'll join us to support our service. The Purdue Military Research Institute, known as PMRI, since its inception, has educated over 100 military officers to go back to their respective services and then use that knowledge in their assignments. The value of an education here at Purdue University, a world-class teaching education and research university, is that military members are immediately connected to Department of Defense research projects, and then they take that knowledge along with their academic degree back to their respective services and use that information and education to protect service members throughout the world. After graduating here from Purdue, my fellow officers in the Navy surprised that this program exists and I really look forward to using some of the skills that I've learned and finding new interdisciplinary ways to look at a problem instead of looking through a small silo, and a lot of those are reaching out networks and Purdue is really big on building that network. Growing up in the Midwest, Purdue has always been on my radar from birth. My godmother was a Purdue alumni and my cousins have went to Purdue as well. Being able to go to Purdue and put that on my resume is something spectacular to me. I have two little girls and it's great to be able to let them grow up in the Purdue West Lafayette community and let them be exposed to all the great, innovative activities that are going on in this area. And so for me, being able to be at Purdue and pursue a material science PhD is really a remarkable thing. Years ago, I wouldn't be able to tell you that this opportunity would have been available to me. So I'm very grateful. I chose Purdue and the PMRI program because it was a one-of-a-kind, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It's not often that you get to step away from your military duties for a couple of years and focus full-time on a problem of interest and focus on something that really has direct correlation to your specialty within the military and to common problems that we're facing across the DOD. The military has definitely benefited from me having gone to Purdue for this graduate program and that it kept my analytical skills sharp for those three years that I was away from the Army, which is pretty important for an intel officer. And it also gave me exposure to contacts in academia and industry for working on some of the problems we face right now. The program at Purdue is unique. It's a wonderful way to help our armed services personnel to increase knowledge and be more effective, and we do need to increase our military strength. There have been some real innovative situations which have come forward in missiles, anti-missiles, and so on. Real technical and highly technical. And a lot of engineering know-how, it would be most helpful if someone is going to be put in charge of one of those operations that he has understanding of the basics of it. Therefore, I think it's just mostly important for this to happen, and that's why we support it, and we think other people will support it and should support it as well. An easy way to help out the members of our armed services. There's nothing new about Purdue University's contributions to the security of the United States of America. Our ROTC program is approaching 100 years old, and throughout the years Purdue has contributed human talent as well as great research to the defense priorities of America. In recent years, we have added a program that I'm enormously proud of and always eager to support and participate in when asked, and that is the program in which officers come here to our Military Research Institute for advanced degrees on an expedited basis and then return to their posts and protecting the rest of us. I consider this so central to Purdue's mission. I look forward each year to meeting the brilliant young officers, the men and women who come here for those advanced degrees. I marvel at the grasp they already have. Technology has always been central to military supremacy, but never so much as today. And so I hope that this program is more relevant than it's ever been as we try to expose many of these advanced degree candidates to the technological disciplines that will protect us all looking ahead. So thanks to those who operate this program, thanks to those who participate in it, most of all thanks to those who support this program and make it possible. We certainly look forward not just to its continuation, but to its expansion to the extent that our friends in the military services believe we can be of service.