 Peter Heckman sits on the board of the NEA Foundation. In his retirement, he wanted to do more than play golf and travel. Both work and family connected him to public education, so he wanted to stay involved in that community. Teachers are underappreciated, underpaid, so to give back and make sure that the public education process can continue and hopefully get back to thriving is critical and so anything I can do to help in that regard, I'm glad to do it. As CFO of a financial and insurance company, he sold products to K-12 teachers and had a relationship with the NEA. On a more personal note, he comes from a family of educators. My mom was a secretary in a high school district office. My sister taught junior high math her entire life and my wife was a guidance counselor in a high school, public high school. So we all kind of talk and eat and sleep education and have come to experience, at least secondhand, some of the challenges that public school teachers have to confront, especially these days. When Peter's oldest daughter went into teaching, he wasn't at all surprised. My name is Lauren Lara. I am a special education teacher for grades 3 through 5 in Chicago Public Schools. What did surprise Peter, however, was how he felt the first time he saw Lauren in front of the classroom as he shared with us some 12 years later. I remember kind of being in the back of the classroom and seeing you doing your thing and I knew that you loved to teach and had done that even as high school work. But, you know, I just didn't know what to expect and I just saw all these third graders and some were sick, some were acting up, some were paying attention, you were in the front of the classroom, seemed to have control of it, knew when to discipline, never raised your voice, but always got their attention. So it seemed like whatever they threw at you, you were able to deal with so professionally. And at the time I was CFO at Horace Mann and had just been in a board meeting and, you know, I just realized that I don't think I could do what Lauren's doing right now. I don't think I'd be able to do it. I'd either start yelling or I would just throw my hands up. God knows what I would do. And then I remember you went to lunch with the kids and I remember there was one little blonde hair girl, I recall. Something was going on with her. And then when Lauren and the class went to lunch, Lauren made sure all the kids got through the line, got their food, but then she took this little girl and took her to a separate table. I remember you hugging her or holding her hand or something and remember her crying. I remember I could picture exactly the day and time and everything. And then you went back to class and continued on the rest of the day and, you know, throughout the whole thing. And even for the day or two after that, I just kept on thinking to myself, you know, she is the CEO of her classroom or even more than a CEO because a CEO can take a break. A CEO can do this and that and the company will go on without him or her. Your class doesn't do anything without you. I think that was really a special thing that he came because you wish that, you know, the people that you live with or grew up with or like my husband now, you wish those people experienced really what a day-to-day is because I don't think anybody understands unless you're in the classroom or in that situation. So that's special that he got to experience it. It was a pretty special time that I actually saw you in your environment. But to see you do things that that I could never even hope to do was pretty cool. Thank you.