square is actually named after the u.s.s. portsmith which was one of the very first official american vessels to visit the san francisco bay area. so i want to acknowledge that and i want to also give special acknowledgement to our fleet week's chairperson, general myatt who has brought special emphasis with connecting up fleet week with the humanitarian assistance and the disaster response that now it's been known to have. i also know that all of our departments are very proud of and very much looking forward to this, general, as we do the leadership training that starts tomorrow. it is the senior leaders seminar, which is one of the highlights that we look forward to in this year's 2011 fleet week. and that is, allows our federal, our state, and our local officials to review our response plans in conjunction

with emergency management personnel and responders throughout our city agencies and to make sure that we can integrate that with our military relief efforts and that's a very special, i know we get the practice because it really is a practice of when our natural disaster will be on us and we want to make sure that we practice everything that we can possibly do and take advantage, full advantage of our military personnel being here in the bay area. you know, this is a very truly unique learning and relationship building that we have an opportunity to do every time we have fleet week here. and the represents from a broad range of agencies whether they're local or regional or state or federal can come together on the seminars and exchange tabletop exercises as well as interact with our own city's department of emergency management. i want to personally thank our honorary fleet week co-chairs. that's been, of course, a very

good friend and still our senator, senator dianne feinstein as well as our former secretary of state, george shultz, both of overwhelm are very business today and can't be here. i want to give a personal nod to their leadership as being our honorary co-chairs. both of them have been working really hard behind the scenes to make sure that we put fleet back into the term fleet week and they have been instrumental historically to make sure that we honor this tradition and found the support to grow this very big event. i also want to thank the many sponsors and government agencys that have come together to have stepped up for the fleet week, all the activities, especially our public safety departments, our police and fire, our management of our transit authority, our sfmta, our port, our recreation and parks department and our airport and,

of course, as a mentioned, our department of emergency management. and today, we have representatives from the u.s. navy as well as the canadian navy in addition to the marines, the u.s. coast guard. i want to thank all of them for being here and helping us kick off our 30th celebration of fleet week. and now i would like to introduce the chair, someone who has been working very hard and continues to remind me to make sure that i put time aside for all of the numerous events that will occur in our wonderful city at this time and that is, of course, the general. come up, general. [applause] >> thank you, mayor. i really appreciate that. i will tell you that when you do have an honorary pair of co-chairs like senator feinstein and secretary shultz, you get a little rudder guidance to put you on the right track.

we have had that. the focus on humanitarian and disaster response is the right thing to be doing. we have the best humanitarian assistance providers in the world. they're the member of the naval services and actually the u.s. military. so why not take advantage of their expertise and their skills. they have demonstrated it and actually used it as recently as here in japan with the major earthquake that took place in japan. i will tell you the members of the military here today have been working with us all along for a long time, not just this last week, but it's been months. and to my right, your left, advice admiral manson brown, he is in charge of the coast guard from the west coast to china. his folks have been crucial because the coast guard will probably be the first responders in a maritime environment in the bay area, so i'm really pleased to have him part of our team. to his left is major general melvin species.

he is the deputy commander of the marine force in camp pendleton. he has been working with us and really driving the scenario we have had on the tabletop exercise of medical search. how do we deal with the large number of casualties if we have a large catastrophic earthquake. to his left would be rear admiral jerry huber. he is the commander of the expedition nature strike force and part of the third fleet and the navy, as you know, the third fleet, they're coming in today. will is one ship already here and he is here representing advice admiral beman and advice admiral beman would be here but he doesn't fly in until 1700. the third fleet has been terrific in this whole process. i want to thank the u.s. naval services that are represented here today, but i also want to thank this wonderful committee i have, we're all volunteers. they have day jobs. i think our day jobs have become our night jobs with

fleet week because we believe it's very important. and there is an aspect of what the city's cooperation here, this department of emergency management in the city and county of san francisco put on the most marvelous tabletop exercise, everybody learned so much and the skills that they bring to the table to help us get ready, i'm just really, really impressed. there is one other thing i would like to focus on, and that's these neighborhood early response teams. we are actually showcasing what they do in san francisco, in oakland, in san jose, and all of the communities. all of the cities have these volunteer groups that help the neighborhoods get ready. we're going to have 60 of their team leaders with us during the senior leaders seminar on friday and they're actually going to see a presentation by the deputy dorkt of fema on the role of these emergency response team members in the disaster that occurred in joplin, missouri, and how

critical they were in saving so many lives. it's our chance to really recognize those folks, elevate in other people's ayes the importance they're going to play when we have the big earthquake and to thank them so much for what they do. i mean, they were all volunteers. nobody pays them anything. they just do it because they believe it's important. with that, mayor lee, thank you for your support for fleet week. it is going to be one of the biggest ever. i think our air show will be the biggest in north america. it will be well done. it will be safe. everybody will have a good time. thank you all very for coming. [applause] >> the general was absolutely correct. this is an opportunity for us not only to celebrate our military and the women and men that are in there, but also to bring our city even closer together, to train them, and to constantly build those relationships through this program. that's a wonderful thing. with the thousands of people that will be here throughout the weekend, we, of course,

have our general protocol and that is going to help me acknowledge the participation of so many people here today that have really used their personal time to help make our fleet week very successful. with that, i would like to present a certificate of honor to our united states navy. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you. thank you. i'm going to keep working down to the heights and my height so i can get something going here. >> and my secretaries. >> oh, yes, yes. >> and, of course, as you know, she meant that our former

secretary of state george shultz was a retired marine. >> never retired, always a marine. >> so we would like to present a certificate of honor to our united states marine corporation -- corps. [applause] >> i'm sure he can run faster than me right now. as i mentioned earlier, we want to give a recognition to the ongoing work that we have with presenting a certificate of honor to our united states coast guard. [applause] >> yes, and, of course, as you know, i said earlier that it's in addition to our u.s. armed forces, we have joining us the

royal canadian air force, so a certificate of honor to the royal canadian air force. [applause] >> thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> and representing our, the country of canada, a certificate of honor presented to the counsel general of canada and she'll be accepting the certificate of honor for the royal canadian navy. [applause] >> and of course, something that the mayor always gets to do, we get to make a

proclamation which means free parking for the whole weekend? [laughter] >> and i would like to really make this a special one because i know that the general has really put his heart into it. it's not just the weeks beforehand. all year-round we're talking about how to make fleet week successful, how to make the honor and tradition to be even more visible to everybody here because we know that this is the time in our country's history where we really need to show much more appreciation for all of the people that have been done here and all of the history that we have with the armed forces. general, i want to thank you for our great leadership, and your personal perseverance in volunteering all of your personal time to do this. on behalf of the city of san francisco, we declare this fleet week and thank you very much for your work.

>> thank you. [applause] >> thank you so much. i appreciate it. >> ok, thank you very much. we're kicking it off. it's all sunny and look out and start listening for the blue angels. they'll be flying before you know it. thank you very much, everybody. [applause]