FINISHED FILE 

2017 USBLN20TH ANNUAL NATIONAL CONFERENCE

ORLANDO, FLORIDAAUGUST 23, 2017AWARDS BANQUET 7:30 P.M. ET

Services Provided By:Caption First, Inc.P.O. Box 3066Monument, CO 801321 877 825 5234www.captionfirst.com

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This text is being provided in a rough draft Format.  Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) or captioning are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.

***>> JILL HOUGHTON: Good evening, good evening. We would

invite you all to find a seat, please.And we have an opportunity to help each other because the

good news is there's a lot of you here.So, if you have an empty seat at your table, if you could

raise your hand to help guide people to those spots. Are there empty seats? This is a great problem if you could just help us. Raise your hand if you have an empty spot at your seat, at your table.

We're bringing in more tables as we speak. Thank you for your patience.

For those of you seeking a seat, if you have around empty seat at your table, if you could raise your hand for us. Thank you so much for your patience. It's a wonderful problem to have that we have so many for such a special evening.

Just give us a moment and we'll get these tables set up because the Marriott is awesome and they're helping us. We just want to make sure that everyone has a seat.

Once again, good evening, everybody. I hope you all found a seat and you have a nice cold beverage, our program will begin in five minutes. Please go ahead and enjoy your salads. Okay, everybody, please give your attention to the stage and welcome back Jill Houghton.

Good evening and welcome to the USBLN. Tonight is a really special night. Because you know why? We get to celebrate you.

We get to celebrate the leadership that business is making to include people with disabilities because you know what? It's so awesome to be in a house where business is saying we cannot afford to not include people with disabilities. Let's give it up for you!

(Applause).We get to celebrate with our partner, the American

Association of People with Disabilities. We get to celebrate the top scoring companies on the Disability Equality Index. We salute you. We get to celebrate our leadership awards.

Now, before I introduce you to our emcee, I got breaking news.

And it's something to celebrate.Are you ready for this? Northrop Grumman has made 11 job

offers!(Cheers and applause.)And I've got my hand up with five because there's five more

in the pipeline for possible offers.Now, it's what it's all about. With my other hand, Boston

Scientific had made or is in the process of making two and potentially more job offers.

(Applause).None of this would be possible without the leadership of

Keri Gray and without such a rocking 2017 class of Rising Leaders. We have 110 of you. We're going to have 220 of you next year.

And you're going to be back to pay it forward. And all of these awesome companies in here, you better figure out the secret sauce from Northrop Grumman and Boston Scientific or else they're going to just keep getting all the talent.

Okay, without further ado, I get to introduce you to tonight's emcee. And wow, are you in for a treat. This man, Mr. Gerard Dehrmann is the Senior Vice President of public affairs and State and Local Government Affairs and he's a USBLN board member and he's with Walmart. And he is -- disability inclusion is in Gerard's DNA and it's also in the DNA of Walmart. So Mr. Gerard Dehrmann.

(Applause).>> GERARD DEHRMANN: Good evening, everyone.How's everyone doing? Fantastic. I feel like after that

introduction from Jill, I should juggle or have a lot of jokes to go into my set. I don't have a lot, but I will offer you this: Jill was going to try to get Ryan Seacrest to host tonight but she realized it would bow blow the entire budget for this conference so you get me instead of him. If I start quoting dim

the lights and turn on the music and people in the booth don't listen to me at all, don't bother, I'm just trying to keep the Ryan Seacrest going. I want to thank Jill and the entire USBLN team for their incredible leadership this week and putting this conference on. If the staff would stand up, raise their hands and let's all give them a round of applause

And I will say if there are any other companies who want to give out job offers like Oprah gives out cars on her show, we can call you up here today as well. Happy to keep that going through the night. Keep it going through dinner. We can make announcements here on the spot. Maybe we'll even have one from Walmart, who knows. I'm putting pressure on my team there. This is my team. They've been working hard. Hopefully you met them. Everybody wave and say hello. It takes a village and a small mom and pop retailer that is wall particularity to make the mighty wheel turn. These individuals do that. They're like little ducks below the water. Thank you all for your work. One of the deals I did make with Jill as a result of me not getting a fee or any concessions for being master of ceremonies tonight, she did offer me to offer up a Walmart commercial. Everybody can guffaw, right? There's a great story about it. It aired once this past Sunday and it's interesting in the context which I want to provide to everyone so when you hear the music covers the ad, you'll understand the visuals that goes with it. The title of the ad is many chairs, one r one table. As we watched the events of Charlottesville and the country grip the nation over the past week or so, we had a moment at Walmart where our marketing team and senior leadership got together and said we've got this great ad that has got nothing to do with selling diapers or nothing to do with selling paper towels or beer or wine or spirits, or whatever it might be. But it does talk about inclusion and community and about people coming together for the common good. So what you'll see in the ad is folks dragging chairs to a field from all walks of life, from urban suburban, rural, through fields, through cities, on trucks, on trains, with bikes, it's set to a wonderful piece of music that you can all enjoy and hum along to. The important piece about this ad to us is as a company we have to represent the communities where we operate. We have about 140 million guests that come shop with us every week. If we're not a reflection of their views, their values and what they hold dear, shame on us. Hopefully this ad brings it together. But also think about everyone having a seat at the table. Everyone here took the time out to sit at the table tonight to sit through the meetings and various committees and work that everyone did. So without further ado, we'll run the

video.(Music) if you hear the song I sing, you will understand.You hold the key to love and fear. All in your trembling

hand.Come on, people now, smile on your brother, everybody get

together and try to love one another right now.Come on people now, everybody get together try to love one

another right now.(Applause).>> GERARD DEHRMANN: I think it's interesting, a lot of

businesses in this room compete against one another every day on the playing field that is all of the businesses that we operate.

But we all come together, USBLN, for a common cause and a common goal and I think putting all of those marketplace differences aside and rallying behind disability inclusion and fostering a new leadership and new voice for America where we've seen over the past few weeks especially businesses and NGOs are going to have to lead now more than ever. That's something that Walmart recognizes. We hope you all join with us when we ask you to join us at our table as we talk about issues that are topical and important to everyone in this room and across the country and around the world. So a little about what we're here to do this evening. It's exciting. We're here to present awards to those companies who received the top scores in the Disability Equality Index or Disability Equality Index. But let's take a moment to consider what that means

It means that the businesses represented here tonight understand the business imperative to maximize talent of people with disabilities and their workplace and marketplace.

That's one of the largest employers in the world, Walmart certainly knows how important it is to have folks from all walks of life working for us and with us, it makes us a better company internally and externally in how we work with everyone across the country. People with disabilities and those who love and care for them make up a significant portion of the population. That businesses should not and must not ignore.

To do that would be bad business and frankly, morally inexcusable.

Recently Walmart's CEO Doug McMillan said diverse perspectives often lead to the best ideas. At Walmart, we know diverse ideas and populations are the well spring of innovation that makes us better and for that it's one of the big reasons why we're engaged with USBLN and we're proud of what we've done over the years with our Disability Equality Index score. Because I'll tell you something, when we first started our journey with the

Disability Equality Index, we didn't have a perfect score. And it wasn't something we were frankly, proud of. But one of the things we always say internally is if you judge the paper and if you grade the paper, you're going do better going forward. And I'm proud that this year we hit 100% on the index and we're going to celebrate a lot of the companies that did that as well.

(Applause).One of the important things that I would encourage everyone

to do is get engaged and be involved. When you have a seat at the table, have a voice and make sure your voice is heard. And one of the big of the ways to do that is to be involved and engaged. Two separate things.

So thanks again for allowing me to be your emcee tonight. We're going to get rolling in two pieces of the program. And for that I'm going to introduce Jon Froemel with Barnes and Thornburg as a special guest. Jon.

>> Thank you. For the last five years I've had the privilege and honor to provide pro bono legal services to the USBLN. It's been an honor and privilege. And they did invite me to give a presentation today.

The presentation was related to intellectual property, although little known fact, they invited me because I am the world's foremost expert on lazy rivers. So I had an opportunity to hit the lazy river. It has been an amazing week for me when it comes to issues related to diversity and inclusion.

Last week Barnes and Thornburg hosted it's 8th annual diversity award dinner in Chicago and I was sitting in a room where we honored the Reverend Jesse Jackson senior. It was motivational. Sitting in the meeting rooms in the last several days it's been equally inspirational, equally motivating. I appreciate the opportunity that all my partners and colleagues at Barnes & Thornburg appreciate the opportunity to work with USBLN and we absolutely appreciate everyone in this room who is focused and interested in issues related to diversity and inclusion. Thank you very much.

(Applause).>> GERARD DEHRMANN:Thank you, Jon. I appreciate all those

words. Now I'd like to ask Jarrod Sheets from Wells Fargo to join me on the stage. Jarrod, come on out. You need to clap a little -- he's got big checks, everybody. Come on. Big checks.

What are we going to do with those big checks? We're going to give them away. I want to talk about the Pitch Tank winners and what the competition was about. It brings out the best in entrepreneurs with disabilities as they made their pitch and present their capabilities to a judging panel comprised of top

buyers and decision-makers from top corporations. Finalists were selected after a rigorous vetting process and made their pitches earlier today. Certainly high pressure, high stakes. It's exciting to announce who the winners are. This is the second year of the program and it was supported by Wells Fargo and several youth corporate partners. We're going to do this from third to first and ask the people to come on stage and join us, third place winner from Wells Fargo is Zinarow. Come on down.

Xinarow. Come on down.And our second place winners recipients of $2,500 from Wells

Fargo is Bender Consulting!>> GERARD DEHRMANN: All right, the moment we've all been

waiting for. First place winner. This has got $5,000 on the line, people.

And the winner I'm proud to announce is Tracked Mobility!(Music) you've got one kicker that I'm delighted to announce as

well. The small sheet giveth this time, doesn't taketh Merck is going to award a full scholarship for business school. Merck thank you so much for your support for doing that.

Now, because it's not quite the season of giving but we'll keep the giving mood going, earlier today team Walmart down there was wanting to do something special for some of our Rising Leaders. So we went around and started a raffle of our own for five $100 give cards to Walmart and when you have $100 gift card, the prices are so low it's like tripling your prices at the mart. It's a one win. We have winners. Asher Kirshbaum.

Congratulations.Kayla Landon, Devante Doheny, Monica Gomez and Brian

Stromer. Come on down.Please.We'll ensure that we find the rightful winners of the other

gift cards as well. Congratulations, everyone.All right, so unless I hear anyone from the audience who

wants to give away something more, I can open up the mic for that. If not, I'm going to ask that everyone enjoy dinner and we'll be back with you shortly. Thank you.

(Applause). >> Everyone, may I have your attention, please, will you

please have a warm welcome, give it up to the stage for Gerard Dehrmann and Jill Houghton.

(Applause).>> GERARD DEHRMANN: Thank you, thank you, thank you.It is great to be back with you.Felt like it was just a minute. I barely had time to eat.

But I have enough sustenance to get through the second half of our program which is not even arguably the most important part which is all the awards we get to bestow on a lot of great companies, a lot of great chapters and a lot of great individuals. We're going to get into that in a minute. I do have a couple things just to mention. One of them, you can put down in the category of I was given some bad information on or to be more in tune with the time, I was given some fake news which impacts one of the things that I actually stood up here and announced. I wanted to recognize that we made a little bit of a miss cue when we announced who was going to sponsor the TUC scholarships. The company actually sponsoring those scholarships is Bristol-Myers Squibb. So, if I can have that team stand up, receive our applause. Thank you. These things happen all the time in award shows, I'm told. So we're just going to get right through it.

Victims of our own success is another thing that we could probably put down as a hashtag tonight. We have over 800 people here, which is fantastic. Give yourselves a round of applause

As a result, it's our largest awards dinner ever which is probably because I'm here again. Thank you for coming out to see me.

The other piece that goes along with this, you take the good and take the bad -- we can start singing "facts of life" but I won't do that. We're still working through getting meals out to everyone because it was more of a crusher than we thought. With that being said, what I'd like to add and applaud are the fine people at J.W. Marriott, all the fine servers in the room and people who have taken care of us all week. So thank you.

Pleas bear with them because without them we'd have no food and no drink and we probably wouldn't know where we're going because it's so easy to get lost around here. Thanks again. That takes care of the housekeeping portions of the evening. And now it's time to get into the meat of the day here. Our first award, this is going to be for Afiliate of the Year. The way we're going to do this is I'll give everyone a sense of what the award is going to be for. We'll cue the video of who gets the award. We'll bring people up on stage and bestow upon them a wonderful globe on a stand. Now that globe is not attached to the pedestal. So this will be a real challenge for Jill and myself and everyone up here who receives these because we do not want to destroy them. They're one of kind, even though we've got 15 of them. Hearts and minds. We're going to get in to roll the first videotape of our winner for Afiliate of the Year.

(Video)

to accept the award on behalf of DC Metro BLN is executive director Katherine McCary.

>> KATHERINE McCARY: Good evening. Thank you so much we're so excited to be Afiliate of the Year. We submitted every year since we won in 2012.

It took us five more years to be back on stage. But hey DC BLN, we rock! I want to thank these two brilliant professional women up here on stage with me because Myra wilder, Marriott International has been our chair for two years, in are her leadership we accomplished all those things, Andrea hall, our new board chair, you've got a lot of things on your plate we've got to step up and work and wait another three years to apply. But DC Metro BLN feels like we're center of the world and ready to pilot anything. If you have an idea and thought and don't have the funds to do it, we don't either but we'll work with you and try to give it a shot. We're all about youth, all about millenials, all about inclusion and partnerships and we're all about a strong board. We have 12 people in the DC Metro BLN here and we usually have 12-15. We had a full table. So thank you all you leaders sitting there at our table from the DC BLN. Yes yes absolutely. I have 20 seconds. I also want to shoutout as I'm a DOBE. So I really appreciate the whole work that you guys are doing Patricia Richards, you keep going and we've accepted that mandate. Thank you to my business partner, Martha ArtelisC5 who helps us work the DC BLN and Silicon Valley BLN and thank you all great affiliates and great partners we could not do this without your support and help. And these are just two amazing people on our Board of Directors. Keep in tune, keep in touch. Get our newsletter we want to partner with you and help you and we can be stronger together. We will be better together.

Thank you so much.(Applause).All right we'll roll through it here, our next award is

disability-owned business of the year, let's roll the video.(Video)>> GERARD DEHRMANN: Here to accept the award on behalf of

Tic Toc is none other than CEO Paul Gittemeier. Paul, come on down.

Paul Gittemeier well, I'm humbled to have been nominated and receive this award. Thank you all for that.

>> PAUL GITTEMEIER: You know, being here the last few days has reminded me what I love about the USBLN.

Everyone here has a story, I've had the opportunity to meet new friends this week. And hear their stories and they've all seemed to fall into categories that I would entitle resilience,

triumph, collaboration, inspiration, and opportunity.Interestingly those same five words I believe describe the

essence of the USBLN. They described the spirit that pervades this group as well. I love that connection there. I have a favorite scripture passage from the book of Galatians and it's very short. And if is let us never grow weary of doing good.

Way to go for spearheading an organization that gives all of us a platform to do good. That's an awesome opportunity.

And, 2, way to go for attracting people the caliber of Patricia and Cami and Brian and Liz and the rest of your team. Those are people that never grow weary of doing good. But I think they might be a little tired on Friday morning. So, if you'll bear with them. Anyway, listen, as we go forth from this place, let us all -- that that be our charge too, let us never grow weary of doing good. Thank you all.

>> GERARD DEHRMANN: Let's give out more awards. Who's ready? You guys excited. This is for supply chain Advocate of the Year. Once again roll the videotape for the big reveal.

(Video)>> GERARD DEHRMANN: Tim Ruddell, come on down.>> TIM RUDDELL: Good evening, everyone. I hope you're

enjoying the conference. It's an honor to receive the Advocate of the Year award from the youth. I'm privileged -- USBLN. I'm privileged and proud. I'm privileged because I'm white. I'm not 31% more likely to be pulled over when driving because of the color of my skin. I'm privileged because I'm a man. I don't face a marketplace where on average I earn 17% less for doing the same work because of my gender, I'm privileged because I'm heterosexual and sys gender and were I a citizen I'd be able to join the military and serve the country without facing prejudice from the commander in chief.

(Cheers and applause.)I don't currently have -- I don't currently have a

disability. Currently. But many of us who don't will some day. Which means I don't currently face a marketplace with double the average unemployment rate. I'm proud as well as privileged. I'm proud to be in a room with business leader and community advocates led by the USBLN who are building bridges not walls who are committed to in the supply chain. I'm proud for Emergency and I'm proud of the Emergency team here. Three rose down in the center in you want to go balk to them. KPMG scored 100% on the Disability Equality Index which is not down to the team but down to the team here. I'm proud of our values as a firm as chair and CEO Lynn said last week, the KPMG community rejects all expressions of bigotry and supremacy, all feelings are at odds.

Such feelings are at odds with the American ideal we're all created equal. I'm proud of the other business leaders in the room who made similar statements in recent weeks. It's very important to do so. I'm proud to have a career with purpose which connects me with people without the privileges I have and allows me to advocate for them. The serious stuff. Who tried to experience the eclipse on Monday? Anyone? If you were here you might have missed it because there were clouds coming over and I heard people describe it as a once in a lifetime experience. It's not. There's another one in seven years. So I hope you'll still be around in seven years and you'll have another chance to experience it. What there will never be is another Wednesday 23rd of August, 2017. So I'd like for you to make the most of the rest of your time at the conference, consider joining us for the supply chain roundtable tomorrow morning. Make the most of the connections you've made here and enjoy the rest of your time. Thank you.

We're going to start exploratory political committee for Tim and pass the hat for contributions and we'll be sure that wherever he lives, we'll get him elected.

(Laughter)Great speech, nice shout out. Incredible message. Next

award is top corporation for disability owned businesses. Once again we'll go to the big board.

(Video)>> GERARD DEHRMANN: To accept the award on behalf of

Comcast NBC universal is Cecilia Isaacs-Blundin, senior director of Diversity and Inclusion. Cecilia, come on down.

>> CECILIA ISAACS-BLUNDIN: Good evening.I am humbled and honored to accept the top corporation for

disability-opened business on behalf of Comcast, NBC universal. Thank you, Jill. Thank you Patricia and Cami. Comcast NBC Universal has a strong record of inclusion among our employees, business partners and the communities that we serve.

Our comprehensive diversity and inclusion program spends corporate governance workforce, procurement, programming and community investment. We are proud to have earned 100 points on USBLN's Disability Equality Index for the third consecutive year in 2017.

(Applause).And we are so excited to have joined the current cohort of

going for the gold companies.As it relates to disability-owned businesses which is what

brings me here tonight, Comcast NBC universal's commitment is equally strong. We understand diversity is the foundation for

innovation, and we promote disability-owned businesses within our supply chain throughout reach, mentoring and active participation in USBLN panels, webinars, conferences and other DOBE business opportunities, our supplier diversity professionals, many of whom are here tonight, are focused on ensuring that DOBEing are included on bid opportunities throughout Comcast NBC Universal's procurement pipeline. We're extremely proud that our spending withs increased 60% last year and we look forward to continuing our partnership with USBLN in new and exciting ways going forward. Thank you very much.

>> GERARD DEHRMANN: We're going to roll into our next award which is marketplace innovator of the year for campaign or advertisement. That sounds like an Oscar category right there. Let's see who won. (Video).

>> GERARD DEHRMANN: To accept the award on be half of ESPN is John Vassallo, senior coordinating producer.

>> So one of the albatrosses of working in sports TV is Chris, I think I saw one or two things we messed up on that silent drive. We can talk about that later. It's an honor to be here really. I'm humbled not only to be here with you all but to represent ESPN and the Disney company for this moment to accept this honor. On be hall of everybody, I -- on behalf of everybody, I want to say thank you we appreciate the impact this incredible assignment had on all who participated and are proud to showcase it for our fans. The California School for the Deaf Fremont or CSD showed us, our audience, the true common denominator and that is the power of sports. Our colleague Martin first captured the magic of CSD when he directed the E60 special silent nightlights. With his insight, perspective and awareness we're able to approach this high school football game with the knowledge and respect gained from his beautiful work.

What was reinforced from this game is something that C SD students already knew, there is no limit to what one can imagine and achieve. Warren Keller, the head coach at CSD who is with us tonight, big game on Friday --

(Applause).Warren?Warren welcomed us to his campus and with open arms putting

us in the position to gain the kind of understanding we needed to help the audience witness how his team plays.

The innovation of this telecast would not have been possible without so many incredible people from the ESPN enable team, Employee Resource Group to USBLN National Association for the Deaf.

Because of them, along with the staff at CSD we're able to

enhance our coverage with special camera placement, in the field analysis, translations, community reaction and what you saw there a little bit of the silent drive. Our interpreter deign Lenz who is also here tonight with Warren, flew in on the red-eye because they didn't want to miss practice yesterday, he and his colleague Rebecca Quigley were invaluable to us with their patience and amazing hard work over the few days that led up to the telecast.

Both Dane and Rebecca were incredibly helpful deliver post game interviews, sports center and highlights. Missy, producer from sports center who single-handedly put that project on her back is also with us tonight.

So thank you.I mean, I could probably filibuster up here but I know the

music is going to play me off.Thank you for the USBLN network for this recognition. But

far more importantly, thank you the California School for the Deaf for their record of achievement in reminding us that we're all connected by our abilities. Thank you.

(Applause).>> GERARD DEHRMANN: All right, move it on along here with

our next award.It's marketplace innovator of the year for a product.winner is ... (video)>> GERARD DEHRMANN: To accept the award is Microsoft

accessibility principal PM manager, Clint Covington.>> CLINT COVINGTON: Thank you. It's so humbling to receive

such an important award when there's so many people out here that are doing fantastic work for people with disabilities and building products and services.

I want to give a big shoutout to the USBLN and especially the new tech track. Jill, you and your team inspire us to do our best work.

(Applause).I'm humbled to accept this award on behalf of everybody at

Microsoft. The developers who worked late at night building accessibility features, the hackers, the people who were out trying to tell our story and let the world know about the work and progress we've made.

By show of hands, give a big inclusive applause, whatever your message is. Who uses Windows Office on a daily basis to work? Wow.

The impact blows me away.We feel that responsibility. This is my first year at the

USBLN. I'm really digging the vibe.(Laughter)

You impact the policies, processes, and tools that people with disabilities need to thrive in the workplace.

Several years ago a profound accessibility movement started at Microsoft really kicked into gear.

This work directly impacts your efforts to recruit, retain, and empower people with disabilities in your organization.

Let me just share a few highlights from the teams across Microsoft the work we've done. Eye control in Windows 10 lets you access the PC with movement of your eyes.

This blows me away. I'm not capable of really imagining all the solutions that you would build for your employees and your customers. But I anxiously look forward to seeing that. Windows has made great progress in their inbox applications, their out of the box screen reader, and it's an investment we man to continue to -- plan to continue to make as we move forward.

In Office we started off with two goals. The first one was that people with disabilities can communicate, consume and create content on any device.

Whether that's iOS, Android, Mac, web, took a pretty significant effort from us. The second part was that it's easy to create accessible content for everyone. I think we recognized that we can do a great job of building screen readers and making it to where people can use our applications. But, if the content that people need to create to do their job is not accessible, we haven't achieved the mission that we're trying to accomplish.

You know this effort really started with a complete -- over the last two years, we've rewritten our accessibility implementation across nearly every one of our productivity applications from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, outlook, SharePoint, Skype, one drive, all the products you use on a regular Bailey basis. We looked at code exception and looked at accessibility. Programmatic issues, keyboard issues. Office 365 today is the most accessible version of Office that we've ever shipped

(Applause). I'm really excited about the direction technology is going

to take us with speech recognition. We're starting to see in its infancy of the progress we're making with features like Power Point designer and speech recognition that's reaching unparalleled levels of accuracy. It's going to fundamentally change how we interact with computers as we move forward. I want to especially thank Jenny Lay-Flurrie and her accessibility team for helping us.

(Applause).I met Jenny probably eight years ago. I had a new employee

who was working for me who was deaf. She wanted to help us

onboard this person to the team to be successful. Back then she was Jenny Lay-Flurrie. Now I guess she's "jenny."

Her team fills a really important role about an enterprise disability answer desk that allows your employees, when they're struggling with some of the new work that we've done or old work we've done around disabilities to help them get over that hump. That's a free service that they can call with the enterprise disability answer desk

I really want to thank Satya and senior leadership team at Microsoft. They did a fantastic job of really connecting this to our mission as a company and our path to innovation. It truly has been a bottom up, top down approach. If you want to learn more about our products and services and how it can help people in your organization thrive, check out Microsoft.com/accessibility or follow us on Twitter at msftenable. Hit us up we'd love to share your feedback. I'm going to share a story about me that I've never shared before.

Because it's important.There's one last feature in Office that is deeply personal

to me. I've been at Microsoft for close to 20 years. It's been great for me and my family.

It's been fantastic career and I've lovered the impact that the work that I do has on people in the world.

I wasn't always on track to work at Microsoft.I wasn't on track to even have a professional successful

career.In 1st grade, I started to fall behind in school.I was put into a special education class. In the 7th grade,

I tested at a second grade reading level.I was excluded from traditional classroom experiences. And

you know, that came with a host of other things. Not to mention I group up on a pig, goat, mink farm. Kids can be mean when you're skinny, uncoordinated, "Stupid", and smell like a farm animal.

I worried about how I was going to support my family.Fortunately, I was blessed with a really good friend, a best

friend, a loving family, parents. It could have been much worse.They provided me the things that I needed at that time in my

life.In 7th grade, I had a teacher named Lee squires. And a

librarian Mrs. Coombs. They gave me the learning tools that I needed to be successful as a student and later in life.

I left the 8th grade with a 12th grade reading level!(Cheers and applause.)I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.

That experience made me grit and to have a growth mindset.The new learning tools in Word, one note, Edge dramatically

help students and your colleagues with dyslexia to read more effectively. It selects a text, reads it out, it highlights it. It helps improve retention. But it's not just for dyslexic readers that we build it for.

I use learning tools today to read dense content, to -- what I'm tired. Or when I have to get that writing just perfect and it can't have any mistakes and it starts catching those words that I miss as my brain is putting words that weren't on the paper.

It's made -- I would have loved to have that back when I was a kid.

And that experience.People with disabilities have grit and a growth mindset.They're part of a diverse talent pool that can drive

innovation. The bell is going off. I think the music is going to start playing.

Let's work together to help people with disabilities thrive in the workplace.

Take on broader responsibilities and get promoted. Thank you.

(Applause).>> GERARD DEHRMANN: A lot of really good speakers tonight.

I feel like people are taking a run at my emcee duties all of a sudden. I've got a real big complex. We're going to power through and we've got one more award to announce before we bring up our keynote speaker.

So the next award is the ERG/BRG of the year and for that where are we going to go? (Video)

>> GERARD DEHRMANN: To accept the award on behalf of Northrop Grumman are Anita Wright, Phil Hickok, Joan knoll Nolan and Jay Neale, and Joan Nolan. Amy Ruth.

PP good.>> Patrick Geraghty: Good evening ladies and gentlemen, let

me thank Jill and the voting panel for this prestigious recognition, we're extremely honored to be accepting the 2017 ERG of the Year award on behalf of Northrop Grumman and the voice ERG. We're humbled and grateful for the recognition we're receiving tonight. Because I'm certain that every one of the other nominees were just as deserving of this recognition as we were.

I would especially like to thank the four other voice VOICE leaders who joined me on this stage to accept this honor. Without them and their team, the site leads in this corner, we

would not be accepting this honor. Jay Neale from aerospace sector, Joan Nolan, Phil Hickok from technical services sector and most importantly the ERG's heart and soul and my co-chair Anita Wright.

(Applause).You all heard a little bit about it in the video, but I'm

going to reiterate it. What is VOICE about? It's an acronym. We're very good at acronyms in aerospace. We use them for everything. But first of all, it's victory over impairment and challenge enterprise.

It's a corporate-wide all-inclusive resource group committed to enhancing disability awareness. Personal and workplace development among all of its employees.

This is a volunteer group that has just over 1100 employees until tonight. Now we have 1100 and 11.

So --(Applause).And we cover the entire United States.We collaborate with 12 other ERGs across the enterprise to

reinforce diversity and inclusion for everyone.This is an exciting year not only just because we're

receiving this honor, but it's also our 10th year anniversary here in October.

The VOICE ERG strives to develop a sense of community with people with disabilities, advocates and employees and family members who may have disabilities.

The VOICE ERG is very grateful for the support we receive from the executive management. You've seen in the years past we've had Wes Bush who was keynote speaker, president and CEO, just the other day as a matter of fact Tuesday morning our Chief Operating Officer had an opportunity to speak with you. Gloria Flach, that's the kind of corporate leadership that is making groups like ours successful so hopefully you all get the same leadership we have

We also have many other visitors with us tonight, distinguished executives and all of them are championing the disability inclusive workforce that we certainly would not be here if we didn't have their leadership.

So without the additional passion and commitment of a very, very important lady, she couldn't be with us this evening but our very own executive sponsor, Terry Marconi who happens to be vice president and general manager of Northrop Grumman mission systems we would not be here because of her undying tenacious spirit -- it was a word we used at one of our board meetings -- has made us successful because she does fight down all the barriers we may

all encounter. With that once again I'd like to thank you and we're humbled with this award.

(Applause).>> GERARD DEHRMANN: I think Northrop might have the secret

sauce. I've been told by a little bird that there's 70 people here from Northrop. That's one way to represent and it manifested itself in 11 job offers which is pretty cool. I think from a Walmart perspective why we're not doing more and why we're behind and I think it's a good challenge for everyone in the room not for my team, my team is great. I love you all. But it's more of collectively we should be, could be and we will be doing more.

I am also just waiting on the script somewhere to see Walmart get an award but I keep flipping the pages and there's nothing. Weird. Jill. Typo. See? She walks off the stage. That's bad karma.

For me, not her, of course.So we've got a real special speaker to introduce you to him,

I'd like to have -- let's see Kevin Preston who is manager at Global Diversity and Inclusion at the Walt Disney Company introduce our keynote speaker tonight. Kevin.

>> KENNETH PRICE: Good evening all. I'm proud to be here representing the Disney company, it is built on the story telling, every story starts with people, each of 195,000 employees around the world has a unique story.

A story that contributes to our strength and our ability to create moments, memories and magic that last a lifetime. We're committed to providing a safe, respectful, inclusive workplace where everyone can contribute and grow.

Throughout our company, we see how being inclusive helps us be more creative and innovative. That's one reason we're here to sponsor USBLN. This commitment to inclusion is not just a longstanding part of what we do, it is central to who we are.

Tonight I have the honor of introducing Nyle DiMarco, Nyle DiMarco is a model that first rose to prominence as winner of America's next top model's 21st season, the first deaf contestant and dancing with the stars, currently he appears in Hulu's difficult people. After graduating from Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., with a degree in mathematics he was chosen by social media and pursued modeling and acting, now an ambassador for the deaf community he serve as honorary spokesperson for language equality and acquisition for deaf kids. In 2015 he launched the Nyle DiMarco Foundation which aims to empower and improve the lives of deaf children across the globe, inspiration within the deaf community and beyond now continues to prove his

talent as a model, actor, and activist.I'm pleased to welcome Nyle DiMarco!(Applause).>> NYLE DIMARCO: Perfect. Wow, thank you all for having

me. Hold on, let's get this working.There we go.Technical difficulties.Okay.Sorry about that. Technical issues. But whatever. We'll

get started. Thank you all for having me here. I have to say it's such an honor to be here and I also want to thank Kevin with Disney. Thank you so much for introducing me. And also I really am looking forward to being here and discussing about inclusion. This is a topic very dear to my heart.

"Bam when President Obama at the time had his proclamation that October was going to be national disability employment awareness month, he said, "America is strongest when we recognize people of their differences and recognize that in them."

And I couldn't agree with him more. I always say again and again that human diversity colors the world.

Currently at this time, we have 55 million people with disabilities in the United States alone.

Globally we have 1.1 billion people with disabilities.So imagine this. 1 billion people out of 7 billion people

on the planet. We're everywhere.And since we are everywhere, what's most important, what's

the next step to make sure that we have true inclusion, that we're including people with disabilities within the workforce and make sure that they are able to thrive, that they can earn an income to support their families.

You know, to accomplish how we do this and to accomplish this is through education.

And you might ask why education? True inclusion begins at birth. When a person is born and they have a disability, you need to invest in their early education at the very onset. Statistics, UNESCO said that 98% of people with disabilities do not have access to formal education, 98%.

99% of girls with disabilities are not literate and cannot write. So this is a serious issue that we're facing here.

My success really has stemmed from my upbringing because I could define who I was because I had the privilege of education and access to bilingual education from birth.

I grew up in a deaf family. My parents were deaf. My grandparents were deaf. I have two brothers that are deaf. I have over 25 members in my family that are deaf.

So going back four generations. I also went to deaf schools.

I also went to Gallaudet University which is the only deaf university in the world.

(Applause).And with education, I was able to do what I wanted to

accomplish. I could go out and go skateboarding with my long flowing hair. I didn't care what people thought of me. I was able to play sports. I was a member of after school programs and activities.

I was able to identify and define who I was with pride and confidence.

Again, I was privileged. I came with privilege. My parents knew what to do with me. I was very fortunate that I was able to get an education.

So unfortunately, we have seven million -- 70 million people, deaf, worldwide and only two percent of them have access to education in sign language.

So imagine those people, that language deprivation. They don't have the same privilege that I was fortunate to have. I was very lucky.

So with my platform and my platform that has exploded, I want to take advantage of how to actually help people. So I established my own foundation. I work with other deaf organizations and partner with them to make sure that we can pass legislation on the state level to make sure that all deaf children from birth have access to language from day one

(Applause).Thank you.So now as a person with a disability, I believe and know

that businesses have the power and responsibility to invest in this community and actually raise -- or bring people with disabilities into the workforce. And how you can do that is work with other organizations, different organizations, partner with them. Empower them.

Because they know what's best. They know how to change the world. And with them, with persons with disabilities, you can make that change.

And if a company chooses not to hire that person, you're going to be missing out on getting the best person possible for that position.

The reason being why are you missing out? Because often times as a person with a disability like myself, we bring a different perspective. We have different ideas that would benefit companies out there. Because we know people with

disabilities see lives in a very different way. Through a different lens.

Often times you see different commercials that are so inspiring. Who are people behind that? Are people with disabilities. They bring a new fresh idea to the companies and help them thrive.

So today earlier at lunch I came and I enjoyed the panel discussion. And somebody asked a question can millenials, people with disabilities contribute to innovation?

And a panelist said yes, of course. Because this is something that we have -- people with disabilities have figured out how to accommodate the system that we see.

We constantly have to do that with the system and we're offering them solutions within the system to make it better. So basically innovation is in our blood.

You know, the deaf community for many years going back -- we have fought hard to make sure that closed captioning appears on TV. And now we finally have closed captioning on TV and a lot of times when you go to bars you see how loud it is or to the gym, the closed captioning is always on. Basically, I say on behalf of the deaf community, you are welcome. It's because of us deaf people that thought of that

(Applause).I would like to show another example. It's a video. If you

wouldn't mind playing the video for the audience.>> NYLE DIMARCO: Thank you for that. Yeah.That video -- you know, before I actually took that

opportunity on in dancing with the stars, a lot of people said this is impossible. Deaf people can't dance because you can't break that idea between music and sound being interrelated. They have to be connected and you can't take that away. I broke that idea. Because I knew -- I know there are ways. I know there are ways to get around that. You can fix that misconception.

And I knew that there are a lot of deaf people out there that are amazing dancers, probably even better than me. So I made it work. Because there are a lot of different cues that you don't see like tapping myself -- being tapped on the chowder to know it's time to dance or scratching the back to mean you're running late, speed it up or a head nod when I know I was supposed to approach Pita. There are ways to make it work. It takes two to tango as they always say. And also with this, you know, in the middle of that song when the sound goes out and comes back on, do you understand how deaf people live every day without being able to hear? And they still make it work.

So in that video, you know, it was the first in history in

dancing with the stars. And maybe even in dancing history because it's a new way to tell a story, a new perspective. It went viral on the Internet because the person behind that was deaf. He knew the new lens that you needed to see. This applies to so many companies that are here needing to hire people with disabilities. Because we bring a fresh perspective, a new awareness.

So now we've been talking about inclusion all night. So I do want to teach you a couple signs. Are you guys ready out there? Okay. So the sign for inclusion, let's see everybody do it. Come on, join me. Inclusion.

Now do it on your own. Let's see it. I want to see it out there. Okay, you pass.

You've learned one sign, it's pretty easy, right? Before I show you another video, I wanted to talk about the Disability Equality Index. The Disability Equality Index. It's -- in-depth business tool that lets people measure the disability inclusivity efforts. This year was a record. We had 110 companies that actually entered the Disability Equality Index program and 96 of them earned top scores above 80%.

608 companies earned a top score of 100. That proves these are proven leaders in their industry. So now, we're going to show a video of the best places to work in regards to disability inclusion.

(Video)(Applause).>> NYLE DIMARCO: Perfect. So I hope that my speech helped

you to understand the importance of inclusion. Whether working with myself or other organizations, reach out, hire people with disabilities. I hope you enjoyed my presentation. And have a great night. Thank you.

(Applause).>> GERARD DEHRMANN: So what an amazing story, Nyle. That

was fantastic, another round of applause, please.>> NYLE DIMARCO: Thank you.>> GERARD DEHRMANN: So I've been spreading a lot of Gospel

tonight around people giving things away, scholarships, other fun stuff like that. I was so touched by your words and your cause particularly around what your foundation is doing that right here on the spot I'd like to say that Walmart foundation is going to donate $10,000 to the Nyle DiMarco foundation to help diversity color the world and make change. So thank you.

>> NYLE DIMARCO: Thank you so much.>> GERARD DEHRMANN: All right. So take that! Somehow, some

way, I was going to get Walmart into this. Now my team is

wondering who is paying for all this with the foundation, which is great. Who knows? Who knows? It's a big foundation. $300 million a year, we X scrape out 10,000 for a great cause.

All right. Moving on now. We've got a few more big awards. This will be like as you get into the Oscars and best director, the program has gone over two hours how it was supposed to have gone on even though we're pretty much on time though my rambling is not helping right now. The next award without further ado is for Employer of the Year for a company with less than 100,000 employees. The winner is ...

(Applause).>> GERARD DEHRMANN: To accept the award on behalf of

Florida Blue is Amy Ruth, chief HR officer.Amy?>> Amy Ruth: Thank you so much. Never in my life did I

think I would take a podium following someone like Nyle DiMarco. So what an honor this is. I cried when I watched that episode of dancing with the stars and I'm not going to lie, I got a little teary eyed back stage just now too. This is quite a recognition for us at Florida Blue. This is a journey that we've been on, we were sharing stories at din about trying to ask the company for $25,000 years ago just to start this program because it had such a potential to give back to our organization.

Just last week our CEO pat Geraghty issued a memo to the organization to talk about the importance of respect in the world and in our company.

And in our community.And when we think about respect, we think about celebrating

diversity and all aspects of diversity as we try to live our mission of helping people and communities achieve better health.

So I'm so proud to represent the work that our team does, the intro talked about our growth and accommodations, Jen Wilburn is here and she's the one who leads that for us and she's extremely proud on behalf of all of us at Florida Blue to receive this recognition. Thank you very much Jill and team at USBLN. I would be remiss if I didn't put a challenge out to all of us. For me while the awards are wonderful and are a testament for what this means for our organization and how dedicated we are to evening the playing field, for me, my best celebration for this would be when we don't need awards at all. And we just treat everyone the same. Thank you very much.

>> GERARD DEHRMANN: All right. Now we're going to the big one here, Employer of the Year for a company -- this is 100,000 employees or more. So I'm sure Walmart was nominated for this but did not win. Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. Whew. Employer

of the Year for a company with more than 100,000 employees. Here we go.

(Video)>> GERARD DEHRMANN: To accept the award on behalf of IBM,

is Lindsay-Rae McIntyre, chief diversity officer.>> LINDSAY-RAE MCINTYRE: Good evening.Nyle did such an amazing job, I thought maybe we'd stay in

language. Is that okay with you. We're really excited to accept this award tonight. We've been thinking about this night and Jill and her amazing team started their journey with IBM before the USBLN really was a thing.

We started our journey before 1994 and we've just been so honored to work with them since then.

We've created and invented many, many programs like the Rising Leaders mentoring program and the program for diversity supplier programs.

In sharing knowledge, best practices and successes, we can strongly affect, collaborate and impact the changing landscape for people with disabilities and tap into this amazing community of diverse talent.

IBM will continue to advance the technologies that will benefit people of all abilities. For example, right now we're working with Local Motors, to create the world's most accessible self-driving vehicle. Named Olli.

Olli will transform the transportation experience for all, including those with limited mobility.

Catering to the personal needs and preferences of all its riders

Another example is IBM's research organization that's collaborating with different business partners to create a high precision navigation system.

This mobile app is being tested in Japan and guides people with various disabilities to their destination using the most accessible route.

From partnerships and using technology to creating a barrier-free society.

IBM will continue to do what we've done for over a century. And that is advocate for diversity and inclusion for people of all abilities.

Thank you so much. We're honored to accept this award(Applause).>> GERARD DEHRMANN: Now we've got a real special treat for

everyone. To announce this next I'm going to tap out for a minute and invite John Kemp, president and CEO of the Viscardi Center and vicar -- Viscardi center and first CEO of the USBLN to

present this award. John?>> John Kemp: There's serious talent in the house tonight.

Isn't there? How about Gerard. Gerard, I think you're looking at an Emmy or something, outstanding performance. Don't you think? What a great guy.

I look out at this audience and all I can say is I'm so overwhelmed and stunned by the growth and development of the USBLN and its Affiliate Network and partners and young people who are involved and the DOBEs and all of you just thank you very much and who is responsible for this? It's Jill Houghton. Extraordinaire. Her incredible staff. Jenny Lay-Flurrie, the incredible board. Congratulations. I see so many friends and colleagues here, this is where I cut my teeth. I love employers side of issues and love educating and improving quality of opportunities for people with disabilities.

I also know that we have our earn employer assistance and resource network for disability inclusion group from the Viscardi Center and we're proud to partner with ODEP on that to deliver resources to employers. But my topic and opportunity is to talk about leadership.

Leadership something we really need now in our country.(Applause).Moral leadership is what we need now in our country.(Cheers and applause.) That's the overarching theme with this honor that I have

of having an award in my name. I am so proud that it's really focused on moral leadership.

I love and honor diversity and differences.Differences in disabilities, skin color, religion, national

origin, sexual and gender identity. I love the differences.I stand against any groups supremacy like my friend Tim

Ruddell. I stand against prejudice and fear. I stand with each of you in our battle for dignity for humanity.

(Applause).So which company has demonstrated the greatest leadership,

moral leadership and is deserving of the John D. Kemp Leadership Award? Please go to the screens..

>> Ladies and gentlemen, Steve Howe.>> STEVE HOWE: Almost feel like I should accept this award

for Walmart.(Laughter)Feel like it's Gerard's last chance. Let me start with

thank you to Jill and John. I'm really honored and humbled to be here on this stage. And John, who I had the great pleasure to meet just earlier tonight, really humbled to hear those remarks.

And the important work that's being done by Jill and this USBLN team is just so on display for all of us. My first visit to this conference. It's amazing just to walk down the hallways. I feel like I've learned a lot. And watched a lot that I will learn from. And the impact that all of you and USBLN are having on business, business is small and large is truly significant.

I feel really privileged to be among the many who are trying to lead the way for people with disabilities.

And I can tell you that I'm inspired to do even more leaving this conference. And we know as we study this at least 1 in 5 people in the U.S. has a disability.

So abilities inclusion is not just an important societal issue. It's really important for business.

It's important for all companies.And it's really our responsibility as business leaders to

continue on this journey.Let me share a little bit about EY and how our organization

approaches Diversity and Inclusion. As you saw on the video, I lead our business in the Americas I'm the chairman and CEO of our U.S. firm, so I'm responsible for about 70,000 people. About two-thirds of them are millenials and we also keep track of about 300,000 alumni in the Americas as well. We serve thousands of clients from entrepreneurs to the largest companies who are shaping the world for tomorrow. And we believe that creating a diverse and inclusive culture is actually our number one priority. At EY.

Not only do we know it's the right thing to do, we know it makes us better. We know that inclusion -- this is another thing Nyle, I learned, right? Did I get that right? Is an absolute business imperative. It truly does drive better performance, increases quality, enhances innovation, and improved the results of our teams in the field.

We have come to fundamentally believe that across all 70,000 people.

Mean diversity in all respects. Background, education, gender, ethnicity, generation, working styles, thinking styles, sexual orientation, physical, cognitive, emotional differences and abilities.

And while the business case is important, I thought I would share as well that I am personally passionate about diversity and inclusiveness particularly abilities inclusion for some professional and personal reasons.

My father who is deceased had a disability. At 18 he was in a terrible car accident. Laughed three of his closest friends, and had his mobility impaired for the rest of his life with his

legs shortened, stiffened, and required to wear a special boot to walk.

His experience made me acutely aware of the fact that our abilities can change at any moment.

My dad was determined to prove to his family and then to others that hard work should be able to lead to success, even for people with disabilities.

Upon joining EY, I learned that one of our founders, Arthur young, came to America from glass you go, Scotland. He had a hearing disability. He was a lawyer and found that it was difficult to practice law 100 years ago in the courtroom without being able to hear the oral arguments. So he looked for a new profession. And in 1890, moved to Chicago and pursued a career in the then emerging field of accounting. He was one of the first people in Illinois to be admitted as a certified public accountant. His deafness led him to be an innovator. And become one of the great entrepreneurs of the early 20th Century. His legacy inspires all of us at EY to maintain an environment where everybody should have a sense of belonging and should be able to bring the best of themselves to work every day. So today Arthur young's legacy also informs our belief that people can be disabled by at least two things: The environment and people's perceptions.

So at EY, we work hard to build an environment to enable all people, to be respectful and inclusive, and leave no person disabled.

We also believe that the most inclusive organizations reach beyond these labels of disabled and treat differences and abilities like any other difference.

No single dimension of a person's diverse abilities defines who they are.

And we know as I said earlier, that bringing all aspects of diverse talent to the table leveraging in an inclusive way those skills and experiences and differences makes us better helps us create better answers, helps us serve our clients. Helps us deliver innovation.

We're also committed to improving our physical spaces, our things, our tools and resources and believe in the stories you heard from Microsoft and IBM and others tonight and in this conference.

We want to make work accessible to everyone and to enhance our inclusive culture.

And I want to mention one program that I'm particularly proud of that we've really launched in just the last year, our neurodiversity program.

And this is really a ground breaking initiative. We're integrating the skill sets of individuals with autism into our organization and maximizing their abilities to support our people and serve our clients.

Some of these people never dreamed that they would come to work every day. Live in their own apartment. I've spoken even to their parents. We started with four people in Philadelphia, have just expanded to Dallas where we've hired 10 people on the spectrum and we intend to expand this program further.

(Applause).See, at EY, our purpose is to deliver the best quality to

our clients.But also to make a difference. To make a difference in all

of the communities we do work in, which are all the communities across the United States and the world.

At EY we commit to mentoring and equitably sponsoring individuals with diverse abilities in order to truly harness the power of all.

To build inclusive cultures and the diversity of our teams and like Arthur Young, those with diverse abilities will help us drive innovation and growth across our great organization. I'll close with a couple more thoughts.

We're not quite at the level of Northrop Grumman, but I do want to recognize a few tables of EY people who are here tonight.

And share this recognition with me and on behalf of all of our people at EY.

Led by our own Lori Goldman.(Applause).Who I know is just plain Lori to most of you as I learned.Thanks for your hard work every day building our inclusive

workplace culture.And I feel good at EY, as our leader, knowing that our

people really believe they can be themselves every day.We try and reinforce that through our communications,

through the tone we set, through the culture we build. And I also know that in our country today, this is more important than ever.

I also -- this May, when we were recognized as the number one company in the United States by diversity, Inc., for diversity and inclusion, and I shared that night in accepting that recognition -- I'll say it again today -- that you know, for us it's not a competition.

We're all in this together. If we as a company and I as a CEO have inspired others, then that is just great in our book.

And so finally, thank you again Jill and John, the USBLN for

this wonderful award and your longstanding commitment and know that I and EY will be back at it immediately after continuing this journey and being as inclusive as we can be. Thank you very much.

(Applause).>> GERARD DEHRMANN: All right. Congratulations, quite an

honor, Steve, great speech.(Applause). Also always great to see John as well. Round of applause

for him.Should all strive to have an award named after us. We know

he did something really good and we left a legacy, which is great. So with that being said, I have something that's been added to the script and No, it's not a special award that will be bestowed upon my company. Although I guess I could just announce it. So this is for a retailer just based in Arkansas and employs 1.3 million people. Very exclusive category.

(Laughter)But we're going to be more inclusive. So instead we're

going to give away a TV, not from Walmart but this is another one of our giveaways from today from discover things, the winner of the insignia 1080p smart TV is Lawrence Davis, Jr., with George vocational rehabilitation agency. Lawrence, apparently you get the honor of picking it up back stage and trying to get it home. So good luck with that.

I'm sure we'll figure out a way to get it to your place or we could just order that TV on Walmart.com. It could be delivered right to your doorstep or you can use grocery pickup and we'll put it curbside in your car for you. All of those things work. I don't know that Amazon offers any of those services. I wouldn't even try.

(Laughter)I just don't know. I don't study them. The only Seattle

company I love is Microsoft.And by the way, how great is Jenny and her leadership at the

USBLN board.(Applause).I know people mentioned it in passing but it's an honor to

serve on the USBLN board. If all the board members could stand up they deserve a round of applause for all their hard work and the time they put in.

(Applause).So we've come to the end of the road for me and before I

introduce the final speaker of the night, I wanted to thank Jill and the team for giving me this high honor of being the master of

ceremonies, my wit and sometimes wisdom comes through hopefully. If not, I certainly won't be invited back. But the price is right for me because I'm free. And every once in a while I can keep the program going. I will tell you for those who don't know me or know what I do, my day job involves an awful lot of working with government officials, state and local level. Some of the people who would be considered in the swamp. And it's inspiring to me especially on a night like tonight where my phone purposely, by the way, is one of those things I'm trying to instill with my kids, put your phone down and live in the moment. I've been off my phone now for two hours, haven't checked Twitter, Facebook, my team has probably been posting stuff which is great. I'll have that to look forward to. But I've been struck by all the great award recipients and great speeches and great messages we've heard tonight of the. And for me last year when I was able to speak and this year get to spend more time with folks and get to know folks a little bit better, it's an inspiration for me in many ways. Not only a CTRL/ALT delete reset of what's going on in the world today but when you can be inspired with the folks in this room, Rising Leaders, business leadership and everyone in here who will go back to doing what they do, you got to have a lot more hope walking out of here than you had walking in. That's on all of you guys and everyone. So congratulations to all the award winners. One last round of applause for them.

To Jill and the team, to Marriott, to everyone else and now I get the honor as my last order of business to introduce USBLN executive vice president, Liz Taub to take us home. Thank you, everyone.

(Applause).>> LIZ TAUB: My goal is just not to fall.His name was Nicky Ember. He was born in 1920 in Vienna and

as a young child he was already recognizable as a budding artist prodigy.

When World War II started, his mother succeeded in escaping to Shanghai.

But Nicky was taken to Dachau, a concentration camp in Germany.

While there, he endured unimaginable pain and suffering watching friends and family die.

So he began to plot his escape.Nicky worked really hard to memorize the face of one of the

Nazi guards.Almost.He saved most of his preciously scarce bread, water, and

sand for weeks.Using his skills as a sculptor, he chopped up the bread,

mixed it with sand and water, and carved himself a mask of the face of a Nazi guard. Then he stole a Nazi uniform from the tailor shop.

One day he put on the uniform and the mask and walked out the front gate.

Past the guards and past the watchdogs.By the way, this is a true story. Against all odds, against

the barbed wire, against the Nazis, against the watch towers, against the odds of the millions of innocent people who were murdered, Nicky survived and went on to become a famous sculptor.

Because, folks, extreme circumstances are the birthplace of innovation. Necessity is the birthplace of innovation. Every day people with disabilities are living in a world that is stacked against us to come up with unexpected ways to survive and to thrive.

Like Louie Braugh who invented a communication system as a teenager that people in this very room rely on today, millennia later. Because genius comes in unexpected places. Over the past several days you have hopefully had a chance to meet our outstanding Rising Leaders. They are our future and our future looks bright. Lots of pressure for the students!

Let's challenge ourselves to give the Rising Leaders a chance to demonstrate their personal genius to allow that unexpected genius to have novel applications on business.

Some of you have taken us up on that challenge. In fact, Northrop Grumman is leaving this conference after making 11 offers and counting, Boston Scientific two and counting, many of you showed up big this week. Thank you, PNC Bank, Boeing, I'm sure I'm going to forget people.

So it's a dangerous road. But Northrup, you've set the bar and you've set it high.

Last but certainly not least, on behalf of the USBLN team, I want to thank our fearless leader, our boss, our friend, our mentor, this organization is a beautiful reflection of you, Jill.

(Applause).We invite you to mark your calendars and join us at the 21st

annual USBLN conference July 9th-12th, 2018 at the cosmopolitan of Las Vegas and it's a Marriott property.

The theme is next gen disability inclusion and branding is first come, first served. I want to exit stage by thanking each of you for being here, for supporting the organization and for literally being here innovating with us and creating a new reality.

I know you're all taking time away from your families, your day jobs some of you, your office, your life, and we sincerely appreciate it. So thank you. Have a wonderful night.

(Applause) ***

This text is being provided in a rough draft Format.  Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) or captioning are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.

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