I appreciate having an opportunity in this message to thank all of you for your participation in this year’s annual meeting. Whether you voted in person or by proxy, you made your collective wishes known and thus helped chart our course for the future. This particular annual meeting drew one of the highest turnouts ever, and it was important that you had the opportunity to have your say about the leadership of your corporation.

I also want to thank you for your patience in putting up with the massive amounts of mailing from all sides. Getting conflicting information from two different factions can be very confusing and very frustrating for shareholders. Because Alaska Native corporation Board elections are political in nature, the kind of issues raised in a campaign of this nature can become contentious. And when that happens, often what we see is polarization.

That said, I honestly feel that the situation we have at CIRI today is one that offers great hope. Both sides have said that they are not doing your corporation or you as shareholders any favors by keeping this fight going. So in an attempt to try to bring everyone together, there have been some changes made to the officers of the Board. Bill Prosser has been unanimously elected chairman; Chuck Anderson, vice chairman; Michael Boling, treasurer; Gosta Dagg, assistant treasurer; Bob Rude, secretary; Clare Swan, assistant secretary; and Roy Huhndorf, chairman emeritus.

Each and every member of the CIRI Board of Directors and management team needs to honor the vote of the shareholders. Our directive – from the shareholders – is to give respect to all Board members who have been elected. While I believe in my heart that respect is something that is earned, I also believe that it is a requirement in our dealings with each other, not an option.

It is a privilege to be working again with Mr. Prosser. It is his strongest desire to bring the Board together to focus on the business of the corporation. He has made it very clear that his concern is to put all of the personal agendas behind us and do what is right for the company and its shareholders. Our new chairman is a man of experience, with a strong business background. Addressing CIRI employees recently, he was asked what assurance he could offer that the CIRI Board can heal the split that has been troublesome in recent years. With hardly a pause to think, he said that in his lifetime he watched as the United States went to the brink more than once in its so-called Cold War with the Soviet Union. And yet, he noted, in his lifetime, he watched as the Berlin Wall was torn down, brick by brick. Our new chairman said he wouldn’t have accepted his new position if he didn’t have hope. And he explained that it is his hope that the politics of the Board will stay at the Board level, that the Board members will set aside their disputes and come together and that the employees will be given the environment and the tools to do the job they were hired to do.

We all need to work together and to support the Chairman’s efforts to work toward bringing the Board members together for the betterment of the corporation. And that, in turn, can equate to the betterment of all shareholders.

Consistent with that goal, we should all thank Dr. Terry Simpson, our former chairman, for his years of service and for his support of the Board’s efforts to unify.

We have some key goals for CIRI’s bright future, which we have been discussing with you over these recent months. These include:

• Setting aside funds for investment.
• Finding high quality partners with whom to do business.
• Maintaining patience and restraint when evaluating potential endeavors.
• Continuing to grow the company for the future.