While our esteemed General Manager and Chief Operating Officer of the Club, John Iannotti was planning to depart at year end to pursue other professional opportunities, enabling us time to find a suitable replacement, it now appears that the transition can be accelerated. That's because the search being conducted by the Board has identified an outstanding replacement executive much more rapidly than we anticipated, and this can allow John to be free to negotiate his other career opportunities immediately. Therefore, effective Saturday, August 9^th, he will be able to depart, a couple of days ahead of the arrival of his replacement, whom we will announce shortly.
 
John's tenure as the driving force behind our club's operations began in February of 2006 and spanned a significant period in our Club's history. Working closely with the Board and key members of his staff, he oversaw the improvement in the Club's Social and Entertainment Programs and the upgrading of our Food and Beverage activities. Even more important, his wisdom, judgment and people-skills, played an important role in the success of our Club's Management Turnover from the Developer, the Settlement Agreement, and the development of the Master Plan for the Island's Renaissance program now in process.
 
In all these efforts --which extended beyond the typical task of basic Club Management-- his talents gave us the benefit of a long career as one of the nation's most experienced Hospitality and Club facilities executives. Coming to us after eight years as General Manager of St. Andrews Country Club of Boca Raton, he had been a veteran of other key posts served earlier at the Harman-Nickolas Restaurant Group, at the Boca Raton Resort and Club, and the Nick's Fishmarket Group of Chicago.
 
All of us owe John a debt of gratitude for the exceptional energies, commitment and skills he devoted to the advancement and quality of life on this Island, and extend very best wishes for continued success and happiness to him and his family. If you'd like to join us in thanking John, please send any messages of good wishes through our Membership Office, to be presented to him at a special farewell luncheon with his senior staff that we are holding this coming Saturday.
 
Best regards,
 
Tony Fano