DR. COLLEEN HUEBNER: Well, on behalf of the University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine, I welcome you to this two-day working conference on the future of MCH leadership training and from my heart, I welcome you to my hometown of Seattle, Washington. A characteristic of leaders I admire is the ability to work simultaneously from three perspectives. With wisdom of the past, dexterity in the present, and good judgment of the future. Throughout our two days, we'll focus a lot on the present and the future of MCH leadership training.

This morning's first panel sets the context for that work by reflecting on how we got here. The panelists were among the participant leaders at two MCHB-sponsored conferences on leadership training in the years 1987 and 1988. They are Bruce Shapiro of Johns Hopkins, Roz Parrish of the University of Cincinnati, and Mary Richardson, my colleague at the University of Washington. The concepts developed at those two meetings, more than 15 year ago now, had a significant impact on training programs. And if you had a chance, the white papers that resulted from those conferences were included on our website as pre-conference material. And that website will stay active for several months to come, so I urge you to read them if you haven't already. For me, as a director of a school of public health training program, established in 1995, the papers read like our own birth story. It is, I hope, a story that keeps getting better and better. So, with that introduction, Bruce.