Crowne Plaza Hotel, Springfield, Illinois

I am honored to welcome you to the 15th annual Illinois Emergency Management Conference. With your support and dedication this conference has grown from a humble 125 attendees in 1997 to a record setting 1,100 plus registrants last year. This devotion to the profession was exemplified over the past year when the state of Illinois experienced a combination of local, state and federally declared disasters. Although many of these disasters were categorically different the dedication, cooperation and experience of our state's emergency responders remained constant. Since my appointment last February, I have had the privilege to see first hand how our state's emergency management network serves and protects the citizens of Illinois. Whether it was coordinating the response to a record breaking blizzard, recovering from devastating tornados or fighting rising flood waters, our state came together to meet and overcome these challenges. I am extremely proud of the effort and perseverance our state's emergency managers exemplified during our state's time of need. We are truly privileged in the state of Illinois to have some of the best, most well trained and diverse emergency responders in the nation. I challenge you to remain vigilant in your training, exercising and planning to ensure that we will continue to be at the forefront of the emergency management field and provide a safe and secure place for the citizens of Illinois. I feel that this vigilance starts by maintaining and fortifying those strong relationships that we have worked so hard to create over the past 15 years. I urge you to utilize the next few days to create new relationships, learn new techniques from the sessions and begin to develop new ideas to overcome and prepare for the ever changing challenges we will face. A wide variety of talented presenters have been assembled for this year's conference. These presenters will provide important information regarding new resources, technological advances, and in-depth lessons learned from real world events. I hope that you enjoy this year's conference and are able to take away some important information that will enhance your jurisdiction's capabilities or create new partnerships in the emergency management field. As Vince Lombardi once stated, "The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand." I'm confident that with your continued hard work, cooperation and dedication, we will always be prepared to meet the challenges that lie ahead. Sincerely, Jonathon E. Monken, Director