As we start 2008, I’d like to thank our clients and supporters for another great year. In 2007, we provided health advocacy, benefits call center, Medicare D assistance, enrollment services and benefits communications to thousands of employees and retirees.

The year ended with an important milestone in supplier diversity — our certification by the Women Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) as a woman-owned-and-operated business.

The WBENC’s certification is a meticulous process including an in-depth review of financials, firm governance and a site inspection. To qualify for the WBENC seal of approval, more than 51 percent of a firm must be owned by a woman and a woman must direct all operational functions. The certification also means a business has all the financial resources and capacity to meet its mission and goals.

We're particularly honored to be certified by WBENC because it is one of the most widely recognized and respected certification programs in the nation. Accepted by more than 700 major corporations across the country, the certification will further expand our company's visibility among decision makers in corporate supplier diversity and procurement.

Along with honors for our business came an important individual accolade that we're extremely proud of as well. The Winston-Salem chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) named Linda Carter, our client services manager, its “2007 HR Professional of the Year.” See the story on page 4 for more details.

Helping the employees and retirees in our care can be a demanding and sometimes emotionally draining. Yet Linda continues to rise to the challenge. When she's not untangling a maze of insurance red tape, she's serving as a member of the Winston-Salem SHRM board of directors and making Winston-Salem a better place to live through her volunteering.

Her efforts were instrumental in expanding a program that provides clothing for graduates of job training at Goodwill Industries. She obtained hundreds of dollars worth of business suits and accessories from donations to help the unemployed get the clothes necessary to interview and "get the job." We appreciate all Linda does for The Benefit Advocates and community and are proud she's on our team.

This fall brought new learning opportunities for me as Wake Forest University gave me the opportunity to teach “Advanced Human Resource Topics” at Wake Forest University's Babcock School of Management. Many of my second-year MBA students were studying abroad from India, China, and Germany. Most would be considered Gen Y’s. The greatest challenge every business will face is attracting the talent they represent in a global economy.

In a future Advocate I’ll write about how to attract and motivate this smart and technologically advanced yet extremely self-centered group of future workers. Baby Boomer managers beware: the old ways of attracting and motivating this group just won’t work.

As the 2008 election heats up, I’ll write regularly about health care issues and each candidate's approach for fixing our broken system. In the next Advocate, I’ll review a new book by Shannon Brownlee, Overtreatment: How Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer, which reframes the issue and gives us a fresh look at health care reform.

Thanks again to all of you who made 2007 a successful one for us and best wishes to you all for a healthy, happy and prosperous 2008.