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May 2004 In want of nothing material and all traveled out, Keith and I pondered how best we could celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. We discussed at length our choices that have led us to this moment in our lives and the choices we hope to live in the future. And from that discussion was formed an official business entity and title of our partnership � Silver Leaf Ventures. Silver � to celebrate our partnership of 25 years, Leaf � for our new goals of owning our destiny (we�re turning over a new leaf as the saying goes), and Ventures � for we�ve many prospects and options to help us to our goals. Our newest venture is a mom and pop dotcom called Owners Page. We will be officially launching the site in August 2004. We�re very excited about the service and the concept of potentially creating hundreds of jobs for others wishing to have a career at home. Visit www.OwnersPage.com to learn more. There are many ventures to come with plans to work in some capacity with the Hispanic communities of Buncombe and Henderson counties of North Carolina. We will be more forthcoming as plans develop. Our anniversary gift is most unconventional (and is probably considered downright lame and cheap by some), but we couldn�t be happier! Keith and I long ago identified and defined our marriage as a business corporation - among the definitions offered by The American Heritage Dictionary is: �3. A group of people combined into or acting as one body.� Indeed the very act of marriage is corporate. By identifying ourselves in light of a business corporation in that every obligation each performs within the corporation is a means to see us to our end or to our �profits and assets� we have literally taken on a deeper respect, trust, and willingness to support one another. We so identify ourselves by our corporation we don�t consider Keith�s employment as a job given to him by a company, but rather Keith�s dealings with the company is but one of our offered corporate services. Confusing? Our corporation is the Lyerly Marriage. Keith and I vowed to uphold our corporation �til death do us part (and silly us � we took those vows seriously). Our corporation began 25 years ago and needed to be fiscally viable; if the Lyerly Marriage wanted to eat, live in a house, drive cars, raise assets (children) we had to pool our talents and make a business plan, identify our market, go after that market and secure profits through services and/or sales to that market. At present and for 17 years our largest client has been Coats, a thread manufacturer. Keith has been the principal on this account servicing Coats first as an engineering consultant and now as a managing director of one of the company�s manufacturing facilities in Mexico. While Keith has devoted most of his energies to our biggest client, I have taken a lead with managing the many other aspects of our corporation; manager of operations, manager of holdings and assets, financial director, human resources manager, etc � you get my point. Our corporation is successful because we respect one another�s unique skills and contributions and willingness to support one another without fail. Don�t think all has been rosy � we�ve had some knock-down-drag-out board meetings!! All this to say: We have literally conducted our marriage as a corporation for years and now we�re choosing to �go public� with plans to seek new clients and new ways to ensure a fulfilling corporate future. Wishing each of you corporate success! Keith and Donna Lyerly Life and Business Partners for twenty-five years and counting� |