With our quarterly earnings about to be announced no one was anticipating the closing bell more than me. I have watched people ring the opening and closing bell on the New York Stock Exchange for years and I was about to get my shot. You may wonder why I was there - it was not because Intel was about to announce a great start to 2012 with a solid first quarter. No it is not our earnings that brought me to Wall Street on a warm spring day, but Intel was the reason I was there and that is the rest of the story.By now I am sure most Intel employees can recite the corporate vision of creating and extending computing technology to connect and enrich the lives of every person on earth. It is so cool to have a vision with such a powerful purpose. I am sure most of us are also aware that we have a corporate strategic objective to care for our people, the planet and inspire the next generation. Our vision and our strategic objectives chart a course for Intel to not only achieve tremendous business success, but to also help solve global challenges and impact society in a meaningful and positive way.
It is this commitment that extends from our board and Paul Otellini, to our engineers, to our employee groups, to our Intel Involved volunteers, to all of our employees that brought me to Wall Street today. I had the privilege to represent Intel as the 100 Best Corporate Citizens for 2012 were being announced by the Corporate Responsibility Officer Association, CRO Magazine and the NYSE. I am very pleased to announce that Intel ranked 4th on the list of the top 100 corporate citizens.
I should also note that Intel has made it on the list since its inception and has never been ranked lower than 15th. As our director of corporate responsibility I had the honor of accepting the award and ringing the bell, but I did so knowing that each and every Intel employee made the recognition possible. I hope each of our employees is as proud as I am to work for a company that is committed to unleashing its full capabilities to create value for our shareholders, as demonstrated by our earnings announcement, and for society, as demonstrated by this ranking.