I would like to welcome everyone to our 12th annual September 11th Memorial Tribute "Patriots Day". I would also like to make a special welcome to our guest speaker Sgt. Justin Bond who is one of our wounded warrior heroes and to Mary Alice Kaloostian who is here representing California State Senator Tom Berryhill and California State Assemblyman Frank Bigelow. Thank you for being here.

Twelve years ago on September 11th 2002 we made a pact to never forget. We are here today to continue to fulfill this pact. We have come together to honor those who have given their lives and to those that have given themselves to protect us during times of disaster and times of war. The events of September 11th, 2001 were so horrific, I doubt anyone alive at the time, will be able to forget the terrifying images of that day during their lifetime.

Many lives were changed that day. Our world was changed that day. The lives of the families left behind were forever altered. The lives of the survivors will never be the same. The lives of the rescuers were changed and we will always remember them as heroes. But, my life changed and your life changed also. All of our lives changed and the way we live our lives were changed. Today we are more vigilant in our daily lives. We are subjected to security checkpoints. When we fly our personal belongings are scanned, our purses and briefcases are searched and we are personally inspected. When we attend a sporting event, a concert or any other large gathering of people we are subjected to search. This is all done with the intent of making us safe. Safe from what?

That brings me to the biggest change I believe we discovered that day. The discovery that there are people in the world that mean us harm, and not just bodily harm, but people who want to destroy our way of life and our religions. We were awakened to the fact that there are people in the world that would destroy innocent lives, American lives, to advance their twisted ideology. We realized that day that we need protection, and we asked the question; who will provide that protection? And that day we got our answer, our military.

For the last twelve years our military has fought in foreign lands to protect our way of life. Thousands have died protecting our country and providing freedom for us to continue our daily lives. Even more thousands have suffered horrific battle wounds so our families can continue to work and prosper. Who is our military? Our military is us. Our military is our fathers and mothers. It is our brothers and sisters. It is our aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors and friends. It is our friend's friends. It is our honored guest speaker today Sgt. Justin Bond. The military is made up of volunteers from our families and our neighborhoods that have volunteered to protect us, and our families and our way of life. These are the heroes that we must not forget! They have volunteered to put their lives in the way of our enemies from harming us.

Here at B-K Lighting, Teka Illumination, Star Finishes and Blue Dolphin Design and Engineering we have kept our word to never forget, and we continue to keep our word on a daily basis. We have held this ceremony for the last twelve years in remembrance of the brave men and women who preformed unselfish acts of heroism and continue to do so today. As proud employees and citizens of this great country we have supported many memorials around the country donated to support groups and supplied our military personnel with gifts on a monthly basis. An example of these memorials and our giving are represented in our videos today and are:

• Flight 93 Memorial in Union City, Ca. B-K lighting donated Precision 2® fixtures that up light each marker with the name of each hero that died that day in bring down flight 93, thus stopping another disaster.

• We designed and manufactured custom fixtures for Zuccotti Park in New York City, now known as Memorial park, where the 9/11 ceremonies are held annually.

• A special memorial built from "The Sphere", a sculpture that stood in the courtyard of the Twin Towers, which was salvaged from the rubble of the fallen towers and moved to Battery Park. The memorial is illuminated at night by an eternal flame and B-K Lighting Alps™ Series fixtures.

• We designed and manufactured custom lighting fixtures for the beautiful New Jersey 9/11 memorial "Empty Sky".

• On a monthly basis we send three of our military heroes a very large care package full of needed items and letters, all donated by our great employees. Thank you cards, letters and pictures from the troops who receive our packages have overwhelmed us. We have received memorial flags, which are proudly displayed, around our facility and we have even had some of our heroes make a personal visit to our plant to say thank you, personally, to our employees.

• We installed and lighted our flagpole at the entrance to our companies where we proudly fly our American flag and dedicated it to our fallen heroes with a lighted plaque.

• We donate annually to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, which donates 100% of its proceeds to helping the families of our deceased heroes and to the rehabilitation of our wounded warriors and their families.

• And many others.

We have done a lot. And we are very proud of what we have done. But there are still many hero veterans and their families that need our help. Today I am calling on all of our dedicated employees, our companies and you to redouble your efforts in helping our hero veterans.

A decade of war has taken a huge toll on our all volunteer military. Our government is not doing enough. It is required that we continue our pledge that we will not forget and donate to the organizations' that have taken this same pledge and are doing all they can to help our heroes. With this in mind I am pledging a $5000 donation to Sgt. Justin Bond's organization, "OurHeroesDreams.org" and a commitment to double our donation next year to the "Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund". What can you do?

Today our wars continue. Our military continues to suffer casualties of unspeakable proportion. The news is full of stories of the possibilities of yet another war and we will ask our young men and women to put themselves in harms way to protect us yet again. We must make the commitment, as a nation, to help these young heroes. It is the least we can do to pay them back for their commitment to give their lives and their bodies. Please look into your hearts and ask; what can you do? For our part we are re-pledging that "We Will Never Forget"!

Thank you for being here today, may and God bless you, may God bless our troops and may God bless America.