Connie Morella: “Thank you. Thank you, Steny, for your presence and for your serious and important message. We appreciate it very much.…”

“Thank you. Thank you, Steny, for your presence and for your serious and important message. We appreciate it very much. So, folks, not all of our programs focus exclusively on former Members. We have a number of projects that benefit from former Member leadership but involve primarily current Members and their peers overseas. We call these programs Congressional Study Groups; and our focus is on Germany, Turkey, Japan, and Europe as a whole. These programs are now under new management, so to speak, at the association because since our last report to Congress, we've been fortunate to secure the services of Sabine Schleidt, who is our director of international programs. She has brought remarkable expansion to our current Member portfolio and has implemented several new initiatives. We are, indeed, fortunate to have someone so capable oversee this effort. So to give you more background about these very exciting Congressional Study Groups, I invite another former Member of the association, Jack Buechner of Missouri, to the dais. Jack, would you give a report.”