Good afternoon. I'm happy to be here today talking to you about my favorite city in the world, Seattle. My name is Daphne Mackie and I'm the president of A to Z manufacturing and also the head of the Seattle Association of Manufacturers. I've been asked to speak to you today because 15 years ago I was making the very same decision you are trying to decide which city would be the best place for my business and my employees. So today I'm going to show you three reasons why you may decide as I did to join companies like Boeing, Starbucks and Microsoft and locate your company in the Seattle area. So first is Seattle's premier position as a center of international trade.

I know that you ship your devices all over the world and Seattle is ideally located, equidistant from Asia and Europe by air. And in fact, according to the US International Trade Administration, the Seattle area is fourth in the country as an exporting hub and it's not just Boeing that's driving that number. In 2012, 5,652 companies exported goods from the Seattle area and more than 5,000 of them were SMEs, that is small or medium sized companies with fewer than 500 employees. And as such a major transportation hub, the Seattle area has one of the largest ports in the US. This means that getting your products shipped out will be easy and that will save you time and money and allow your company to grow much faster than anywhere else in the US.

Secondly, as you can see in this chart, the Seattle population is significantly better educated than the average in the US with a lot more people with college and advanced degrees as the blue bars in this chart show you. What does that mean for your business? It means that you'll have a ready-made top-notch workforce. When you need to hire employees, you'll have the best and brightest in the US to choose from. And it also means excellent schools and availability of higher education for the families of your employees. This should help you retain your employees and leadership team and as we know, a happy family is a happy employee.

And speaking of happy employees, my third point is the quality of life in this area. With breathtaking scenery, beautiful lakes, mountains, islands and rivers, Seattle is an outdoor playground, seriously. Your employees will be able to have a quality of life that is unmatched in the US, whether they're biking, skiing, hiking, fishing, or just walking down the beach. Your employees will have access to recreational activities outside of work that will greatly contribute to their quality of life.

Now one thing I know you may be worried about is Seattle's reputation as a rainy city. And I was worried about that same thing. So I was really surprised to find out that Seattle is not even in the top 10 rainiest cities in the US. In fact, it isn't even in the top 25. That's right. According to the National Weather Service, Seattle has actually ranked number 44 in amount of rainfall. Now it is true we have a lot of days when we get some rainfall. But as you can see from the green bars on this chart, most of the rainfall is in the winter months. And take a look at that red line that shows our average temperatures between 40 and 65 degrees. Its ideal, isn't it?

To recap, why Seattle? Well for all of these reasons. The Seattle area is a center for international trade. There's a highly educated workforce. And we have an unmatched quality of life. Seattle is the very best choice for your company. Come and join the group of excellent companies who know the very best of the US is found in the Seattle area in the Great Pacific Northwest. Thank you.