Thanks everyone for being here. We're just going to wait a couple of minutes for those that were going to watch the stream. We were told that we were starting at 5:30 so we'll just give them a couple more minutes before we get started.
All right well my clock says 5:30. Gentlemen in the back are we ready to go? All right, thank you.
Well, good evening everyone. I'm Lee Learman, the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. I want to welcome you to our retirement celebration of Dr. Rick Vari and I am just so delighted to see so many professional colleagues, friends, students, and alumni present in this room. Overflow rooms are watching the live stream. It's also wonderful to welcome Rick’s family here to share in our celebration. So glad you can be with us.
Our program was carefully put together to feature many different aspects of Rick’s contributions to our medical school. We will hear from our founding Dean Cynda Johnson who was there in the room when it happened when we hired Rick to the medical school some years ago. She made such a fortunate decision for us and we're also going to be hearing from many members of our VTC community who Rick has touched and influenced during the time of his service to the school.
We are so pleased that our first speaker is Nancy Howell Agee. As president and CEO of Carilion Clinic since 2011 and Carilion's chief operating officer before that, Ms. Agee has played a pivotal role stewarding the development of our school ever since it was a gleam in the eye of Carilion’s former CEO Ed Murphy and Virginia Tech's president at the time Charles Steger. Please join me in welcoming Nancy Howell Agee to the podium.
