Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Welcome to the 40th Annual Belding Awards. This is a night for all us to celebrate the outstanding creative that is produced in Southern California; one of the leading advertising Mecca's of the world.

The inaugural show was forty years ago, named in honor of the "Father of West Coast Advertising", Don Belding. Since that time we have seen many creative leaders come out of the west like Jay Chiat, Lee Clow and Larry Postaer, to name a few.

To produce an event like this is no easy task. This year Mark Patton and his committee have invested many hours to ensure that we pay homage to the outstanding work that has been produced in Southern California. He was fortunate to have Jerry McGee's insight, leadership and energy to hone this into a wonderful event. Many thanks to a very prestigious group of judges who donated their time to review the work.

Also if you see Susan Franceschini, Georgina Morgan, Meghna Kothari, Lisa Rosenfield and the Belding interns, give them a big thank you. They have spent three months collecting, facilitating judging and producing this event, which is the best of its kind in the country.

Congratulations to us all! Each year the Beldings focus on what's great in this industry and city and we all come out as winners.