Hi All

We had a fabulous day at Microsoft with everyone!! It was such a fun and special time. The girls really enjoyed the experience and everyone who participated was "just awesome," quoting the kids now!!!

Wow, I have to say the attendance of Microsoft employees has reached an all time high. The turnout is just so inspiring to me. I have so many wonderful people to thank. And of course the very special staff from Roosevelt HS, made this event really fun !!

First, I want to thank the women who put this event together for us. Thank you to Mylene Padolina, Sr. Diversity Consultant, Microsoft, and Janice Hunter, Microsoft Global Diversity and Inclusion Specialist. You both put such care and thought into making this day really great for us. Thank you !!

Thank you to all the Microsoft Home of the Future team, who makes us feel so welcome. Thank you Leah Devine, Executive Briefing Coordinator, always greets us with a big hello and so happy to see us, makes us feel special. Thank you to Julie Brown, Event Coordinator for the Home of the Future. Julie is also there to welcome us and make us feel so welcome and well, special. And thank you so much to our Tour Guide and Creator of the Home of the Future, Flora Peabody Goldthwaite, Program Manager, Consumer Prototyping and Strategy. The tours are so much fun and Flora tries to get as much stuff in as possible, and there is so much to see. It is so obvious that Flora cares about making the girls experience wonderful and fun, as well as extremely educational. Thank you so much Flora. Flora also joined the lunch discussion and panel, which meant she was with us the whole day, and gave us a tour of her building and office, it was very cool.

Thank you to all the wonderful women and wonderful man who joined us for the discussion and panel lunch. It was such an amazing experience to hear all of your stories. It was such a diverse panel, so many jobs represented, and so many varied backgrounds and paths. The girls were so fortunate to get that opportunity to hear so many types of career choices and ways to get to a successful career. That was really fantastic. It is so clear, you all love what you do. Thank you to Betsy Norton-Middaugh, Program Manager, Lori Longthorne, BGIT Service Manager, Flora Goldthwaite, Program Manager, Cierra D. McDonald, Software Design Engineer/Test, Carla Hurd, Senior Program Manager, Trisha Lacey, Audience Marketing Manager, Gildas Chung, Systems Analyst, and Karen Miller, Telecom and Network Operations Manager.

I want to thank the really wonderful teachers and staff from Roosevelt HS. You all did such a wonderful job, bringing the girls, encouraging them, and just being great all around!! Thank you Dan Norton Middaugh, Web Design , Dennis Birch, Cisco, and Barbara Telford Network Analyst. And of course Liz MacLennan a wonderful teacher organizing and managing all this stuff !! Thank you !!!

Now of course to the great feedback we get from the young women who attended.

• It was very cool to get to talk with some of the employees in Microsoft today. Their stories are really good and help me a lot. I was excited to hear about the internship program at Microsoft.
• I liked the panel debate a lot. It was really interesting to hear the different stories of the women. The stories were very inspiring. The Home of the Future was great.
• I really liked the Microsoft House, I wish have had time to try everything out. The panel was very informative. I had no idea how many different jobs there were at Microsoft.
• The most interesting thing I heard today was that not all the jobs had to do with Networking or Programming. I want to learn more about all the creative jobs.
• Overall I feel it was very interesting. The House of the Future had things I never would have thought of.
• I liked how we got to see hands on experiences. It was interesting to see what Microsoft looks like.
• I liked the tour we went on, I like listening to everyone's story. I noticed that not everyone had a plan, but ended up at Microsoft, very interesting.
• The Home of the Future is so cool. It seemed so unreal, it was incredible.
• I loved the House of the Future, and I wish it was mine. I really heard a lot of great stuff that I wanted to hear.
• It was really good, I liked everything. The house thing it was wow.
• The women's stories were inspirational. The Home of the Future was so cool.
• The women's stories were great. It was such an interesting experience. I loved the Microsoft Home of the Future.
• I want to work at Microsoft. I think it looks like fun. The whole field trip was fun. I think the Home of the Future was really interesting. I think the women really enjoy their jobs.
• The most interesting thing today was hearing the women's voice. I really loved seeing the Microsoft Home. It is a really cool place that they have.
• I think it was interesting that some women just fell into technology and did not have a plan. The House of the Future was hecka nice. It was like no one would of ever thought about it.
• I liked learning about what they do at Microsoft. I really loved seeing the Microsoft Home. I think I am interested in the intern program.
• I liked meeting the ladies and the man. I liked seeing the techno home. I wanted to have more time to listen to the women. It was great.
• I liked how all the employees shared information with us. I really loved the tour of the Home of the Future. I want to look into more events like this.
• You got to ask employees questions which was interesting. It was great, you could not make it better. I heard a lot about how they have diverse jobs. I want to go to summer camp at Microsoft.
• I loved going into the House with all the Future technology.
• I really liked hearing about all the different kinds of jobs available at Microsoft.
• I really enjoyed seeing the house and all the gadgets within it. I thought there was a lot of good info given to us.
• I want to go to Microsoft summer camp!
• I learned about a lot of different ways people work at Microsoft and in high tech.
• The exhibit was very interesting, how different people thought what would happen in with technology in our future lives. ( the lights were very cool :)
• Hearing how the women got to Microsoft was really interesting. I loved the tour.
• I was surprised how many different types of jobs there are in one company. I think it would allow you to do new things. That was really interesting. I liked the Microsoft home, it was really cool.
• I learned about a lot of different jobs you can get in Microsoft. The Home of the Future was really interesting.

It was a very successful day and fun for all!! Thank you everyone for making this day so special.

Sincerely,
Cathi
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