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Title Slide

Thank you Judith
My name is Jeff Hollister, and I am a researcher with the US EPA and a member of the Nor'eastr Conference planning commitee.
We would like to welcome you all the Nor'eastR!
This is the initial meeting of Nor'eastR and it is pretty exciting since the whole thing was conceived on Twitter, planned almost entirely via email and Google Hangouts, by a group of people that didn't really know each other. That I am standing here now and talking to you is pretty amazing.
Before we get started with the heart of the conference, our speakers, I want to take some time to thank a few people and go over some important details

Sponsor/Host Slide

We just heard from Judith Swift, the CI Director, but I want to make sure you recognize the pivotal role they played in the event. It is cliche, but true in this case that none of this would not have happened without their support
Second, our sponsors have really helped out in a big way and helped us keep costs down, especially for students, and let us feed you all well and keep the coffee flowing. SO thanks to them
In particular, be sure to stop by and say Hi to Reid from DataCamp and Rachael from RStudio.

Next, we had a big and rotating cast that helped with all parts of this conference. Our organizing team consisted of (NAME THEM). They have committee ribbons on their nametags so if you see them do say thanks.
Second, our logo was designed by Hao Zhu and we are using it everywhere! Hao is not here, but if you know him do thank him.
Lastly, this conference has been in planning for some time and the cast of characters has evolved with some moving out of the Northeast and others getting pulled in other directions. If you know any of the alums, they deserve thanks as well.

It is very important to the planning committe that Nor'eastR be a welcoming and inclusive conference. We hope we have put everything in place to make this evident.
A part of this is our code of conduct. The quick version of this is on the screen and you can find the full version on the website
Should an issue arise, please reach out to any of the committee members or to those at the registration desk.
Alternatively, the committee members email address are listed on the code of conduct and you may contact any of us there.

Given that this whole thing started on twitter, it perhaps not surprising that we are twitter friendly
If you wish to live tweet portions of the conference note the hashtags as well as the Nor'eastR Conference account
Also, to make live tweeting a bit easier, we created twitter buttons on the schedule that pre-fill most of the relevant informataion.

We will have a photographer about for a portion of the day. If you would prefer to not be photographed, we do have red stickers available at the registration desk that you can put on your nametag to inform the photographer of your wishes to not be photographed
Last, but certainly not least, the restrooms. They are a little bit hidden. Go through the student lounge (doors near the entrance of the auditorium) and through the door in the back of the lounge. That leads to the restrooms.

Enough from me. Let's get this started. So to all the speakers, I will as unobtrusively as possible let you know when you have about 5 minutes left with this sign. We should have some time for a question or two for each speaker. We have 5 minutes in between speakers to transition and get laptop set up. And with that, let me introduce Richie Cotton who is going to introduce our first speaker.