In a business career marked in its early stages by false steps in brand naming (including your student company called Williams Fruitbaskets and rock group named The The) you have gone on to establish America Online, which you co- founded in 1985, as the premier name in the much more demanding field of lnternet services. From numerous and strong competition and the constantly shifting landscape of a pioneering industry, what one observer has called “the first digital media company of substance” has emerged with dramatic growth. Members of your interactive online community now connect more than twenty million times for a cumulated nine million hours a day, generating, not incidently, $1.7 billion in annual revenue. Through the AOL Foundation you also support grassroots programs that use this new medium to foster community, enhance teaching and learning, and improve people’s lives across the economic spectrum. Few prophets dare predict the extent to which cyber communications will transform human experience but one thing is sure: when the history of this emerging field is written, you will stand in the unique position of having been the first to successfully enable the masses to plug into the power of the net.