MARTHA SOMERMAN: Thank you, Wendy. You know when I'm looking, you have to put that down a little bit, because otherwise you can't see women that are a little smaller, so anyway, welcome everybody. It's really a pleasure for me to have this opportunity to greet you on behalf of Seattle, on behalf of the University and especially on behalf of our school and for our center for comprehensive oral health. Actually, I am Dr. Tim (inaudible). He was going, he was supposed to be here. He's in Bethesda, so he's on the other side of the United States today, but he really is the P.I. on the center grant, and we're very fortunate that we have this grant funded from NIH. And I also would like to thank the Maternal and Child Health Bureau for the opportunity to be able to co-sponsor this event of significant importance nationally. There are several reasons why it's important and we're delighted that we're able to participate in this meeting. We're one of the Centers that is funded through NIH to deal with health disparities, and specifically oral health disparities. And I think this is a statement on the recognition by the National Institutes of Health by the federal government of the significance of oral health. On the other hand, unfortunately, we're still, though we talk about it, we now that we're still not linked together with the total body. And this is an opportunity here for the MCH populations to link dentistry. So we welcome this initiative.

The other thing is, in terms of the MCH leadership training grants, there are only three in Pediatric Dentistry, and our school was recently, I think the last of the three that was awarded this particular grant. And so I think many of you also in this audience today recognize the significance, and by today's meetings, by all the activities planned, this is the opportunity to network. I think one of the things I always tell my students. If you meet one new person when you're at a meeting an establish one new network, that's going to move you forward for 20 years later. Ann Drum and myself. So it's great for that, and last, leadership training are critical issues for oral health. And we're very much looking forward to the results of this to the outcomes of this particular meeting today in terms of improving our educational programs. The educational mission is critical for us and critical for all of you to train the leaders of the future. So, we're looking forward to that as well. And then lastly, we'd like to welcome, it's wonderful for us and for oral health to have two keynote speakers, that are dentists, but they're also global health thinkers as well, and that's Dom DePaola, and David Nash, who are joining us today. So thank you. And then the organizers, of course, they just met, or have met, but really have just getting to know Dr. Colleen Huebner, and also I'd like to especially thank, and I'd like everyone to really recognize the incredible efforts of Wendy Mouradian, Dr. Mouradian, who I've worked with in the last year and within the last six months we've been going around to many places together. She is passionate about total health and pediatric dentistry, pediatric medicine, or how do you say it, and also the link between oral and total health. She gets it, and I hope everybody else gets it as well, so Wendy, I'd like to thank you very much for this.