Hi All

We had such a fabulous day at Microsoft with 21 young women from Roosevelt HS. They had such a great day, smiles all around!!

I want to thank someone very special, Renuka Iyer, who coordinated this event for us and worked so hard to make sure everything was perfect for every girl. You did such an outstanding job for us, and it is sincerely a pleasure and honor to meet you and work with you. It was obviously dedication to all the girls that they would have the best experience possible, and they did!! Thank you to all of the Microsoft employees who made this day so special for the young women. You all did such a great job in connecting to the girls and making it fun and interesting. Each girl came back from their job shadow with the biggest smiles, every single one. You all were such a gift to these girls and someone they will not forget. Thank you for taking the time from your very busy schedule to work with these future leaders, to inspire them to be there best! Thank you to Lori Longthorne, who supports all of the IGNITE events that we have at Microsoft, and thank you for coming to the event to meet all the girls! I also want to thank the women in IT group at Microsoft who made a commitment to IGNITE to provide these type of experiences to the young women. I want you all to know how much this means to each and every girl who gets to go. It is an experience that they will never forget, and will have an impact for the rest of their lives. Thank you all.

I want to thank the wonderful teachers who also worked so hard to pull this off. Besides their busy teaching schedule, they also do ignite events!! Thank you to Dan Norton-Middaugh, Web Design, and Karl Ruff, Project Lead the Way teacher, (pre-engineering program) You both are so special and wonderful and care so much about your students and that is so clear to everyone. Thank you for caring the way you do, we are so fortunate to have you in the teaching profession!!

I want to thank Wendy Turner who orders all the buses and substitutes for us. Beside many details that makes things run so smoothly! She has been working behind the scenes, and I want her to know how much we appreciate everything she does for IGNITE, year after year. Wendy, we could not do it all without you!

Here are the comments from the girls survey sheets.

• Today was really fun. I really got to see what it was like to work at Microsoft. All of the people were really nice. Overall I learned a ton today and it was super fun!
• The most interesting parts for me were, how personal your work experience can be, and how much you can tweak your job!
• The person I shadowed did a greta job!! He was very nice and showed us everything! Thank you and I loved it!
• I didn't know all the various processes there were in designing something. I wished it were longer.
• It was cool to set in on meetings, it showed me the work environment. The best part was seeing all the of collaboration and working together. I thought it was great.
• I loved getting to see how a typical day was for an employee at Microsoft. The conference telephone was interesting.
• The best part was meeting people and what their jobs are. Getting to know what its like in a work environment.
• It was great to learn what its like to work at Microsoft, very nice. I learned about so many opportunities.
• I liked getting to know my mentor and learning a lot more about zune and how its made.
• Being able to have individual attention and to be able to ask questions and get direct answers. I learned how the connection each employee had with each other and how they all link. Keep everything you have, it was perfect.
• It was great to see how well everything can run.
• The people I met and knowledge gained about women in the "real World" was the best part. I got to see an average day with the person I shadowed.
• I learned that there are so many career opportunities within Microsoft. I learned that Microsoft has over 80,000 employees worldwide.
• I really enjoyed being able to meet my mentor and work with another person, It was great to see what the everyday environment is like. It was very interesting to learn about Microsoft's personal interest in their employees. It was fun all around. I would do any and all ignite events.
• I liked getting to mentor someone who has a lot of experience with Microsoft and is a leader in a project.
• I liked visiting the Microsoft campus and learning about the business involved in the company. The most interesting thing that I heard today was that in most technology based companies most communication is done through e-mails and not phone calls. I thought this day was great. I would love to do this again too.

Thank you all for making this day possible!
Cathi