One of the things that really sets us apart is our financial strength. We have a strong balance sheet and solid cash flow. And we're committed to putting this to work for our shareholders.

2005 marked the 52nd consecutive year that we increased our cash dividend, a record that we are very proud of holding. Over the long run, we're targeting our dividend payout to be in the range of 30-35 percent of a 5-year rolling average of our earnings per share. We're also continuing to repurchase shares - in fact in 2005 we repurchased approximately 3.3 million shares. These are two important ways that we can build value as well as return value to our shareholders.

Our major focus now is improving our gross margins and profitability. The good news here is that with the renewed focus on our business and our financial strength, we have both the ability and the financial capacity to do what is needed to improve our operations and rebuild margins.

There are a number of positive factors working for us: the markets in which we operate are growing, we have a strong brand, we offer superior solutions, we possess a large customer base and operate within a global footprint. We're sharply focused on monitoring and measuring all of the factors that affect margins and earnings to rebuild our profitability.

Pricing is one area where we're focusing, with a new price management function that emphasizes selling the value of our products and services. Along the way, we've added new internal processes that better control things such as price discounts. We don't just want to simply grow revenue - we want to generate profitable growth. That's why we've also realigned sales compensation to include not just revenue, but margin targets as well.

We're taking a holistic, cross-functional approach to improving operations that leverages our expertise and resources across the company by: improving forecasting; streamlining quality assurance processes; strengthening the supply chain; and optimizing our global manufacturing capabilities. All of these actions help to reduce inefficiencies and eliminate waste. That's what we're doing - driving unnecessary costs out of the system by putting in place better processes and systems to more effectively manage our business. We've reorganized our accounting and finance functions throughout our business units with direct reporting lines to me. This is an important step in improving the tight internal controls necessary to do business in today's environment. These actions in turn will lead to more satisfied customers, employees and shareholders.