years, our guest roast to a variety of increasingly responsible positions, working in canada, the phil peterson, japan and belgium before becoming the firm's chairman president and c.e.o. in 2007. in addition to his p & g management appearance, our guest served on the board of zee rocks and u.s. steel. he left them in 2013 and was confirmed by a vote of 97-0 as secretary of veterans' affair of july of this year. please no live blogging or tweeting, in short, no filing of any kind while the breakfast is underway to give us time to actually listen to what our guests says. there's no embargo when the session ends. to help you resist that urge we will email several pictures of the session to all reporters here as soon as the breakfast ends. the v.a. tells me that they will distribute a transcript of the breakfast later today. as regular attend yis know, if you would like to ask a question, send me a subtle, nonthreatening signal, raised eyebrow, hand wave and i'll happily call on one and all in the time we have available. let me note that i'm a veteran and have two sons in the military. no one in t