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Thank all of you for coming. I have a lot of thank yous tonight, first and foremost
all of our vendors who supported building this store, helping us with the plans, coming
out tonight, it’s been just a fabulous partnership for many, many years but the support you gave
us to build this store and to help us with all our plans has been absolutely terrific.
This really got started when Jim Quigley introduced us to Vandervert Construction and for those
of you who aren’t local and those of you who are especially Vandervert just really
came through for us. We put this store together in just a few months. Neil Muehlhausen was
the foreman on the store and I got a little present for you to night Neil, if you have
room we’re going to put a 50-inch Plasma in the back of your car, this is a thank you
for making this happen. In addition John Rovtar John’s the designer inside, did all the
colors, and he tells me what to do and I just say yes, if I’m given two choices always
want to pick the one that wasn’t the one I picked and you’ll have the better choice.
Within my own team the entire company from marketing, to IT, fulfillment, the buying
team has just been spectacular. Henry Hill, Carol Klentschy, Stephanie Thill, and Chad
McKinney have done a phenomenal job of working with you to bring in new products, new categories
for us, and in particular I want to call out Henry who most of you know, he’s been like
a brother to me for 20 years and it’s really been a joy to work with him, just done a phenomenal
job. The other guy I really rely on everyday have conversations with everyday, really watches
out for us and makes sure we’re doing alright my CFO Laron Eakins, right back there, just
a terrific guy. And the person in the store, where’s Mike, he’s hiding, Mike Reynolds
who is the store manager he’s been talking to me for years, about as long as I’ve been
thinking about a new store he’s been saying when are we going to have a new store, when
are we going to have a new store, and to be able to put this together I can tell you from
the very beginning, long days, 6 days a week, 7 days a week, 8 days a week Mike’s been
eating, breathing, and living this store, and he’s done a phenomenal job. I don’t
get a chance to introduce my family very often so first just from the far end my daughter
Kaitlin who is a retail management major at the business school at University of Washington,
my daughter Melissa who is working on her master’s degree at Seattle University in
school psychology, and the real boss of my household my wife Leslie of 25 years who she
has put up with long days, late nights, a lot of travel to see what we need to do to
put this store together, but above all she has been the one that when the times got tough
or things weren’t on time or whatever happened she said it’s going to work out, it’s
going to work out, she never lost faith and I am very appreciative of that. Finally I
would like to introduce my folks, my mother Norma Huppin, who as a good Jewish mother
should she has really been my number one fan from the longest time of anybody, and finally
my dad here Sam Huppin, none of this happens if my dad hadn’t gotten us in the consumer
electronic business some 50 years ago and taught me the ropes and far more than I ever
learned from anywhere else or any place else, this never could’ve happened. And even when
we started the OneCall division and he thought we were crazy and didn’t know what we were
doing, but he said ok if you really want it you can do it, I really owe it all to you
Pop. So thank you, thank you all for coming and everybody here has just been a really
integral part of this and I really appreciate it. Thank you.