President Leng Jiang, Members, and Colleagues, It is a profound honor to be elected as President of Chinese American Heart Association (CnAHA). I want to thank you for your hard work during this election and your service to our association. I also want to express my gratitude for your trust and will try my very best to be worthy of this privilege to serve CnAHA. I want to congratulate Vice President Dali Fan, Yuling Hong, Jianming Li, David Zhao, Secretary Yan Peng, Treasurer, Cynthia Taub, Membership Director, Huaqui Li, the subspecialty Chairs, Jie Cheng, Li Zhang, Gongyuan Xie, David Zhao, Benjamin Sun, Peng Yan, and, of course, our CnAHA Manager Grace Palma. I am sure you will agree with me that our immediate Past President Dr. Leng Jiang has done a tremendous job so that our association is a much stronger one and her shoes are just too big to fill, but you can see that we have a new board and subspecialty Chairs who are always willing to listen to you and ready to serve your needs. In the next 2 years, we see many challenges and opportunities, as you all know. To serve our missions, we will continue to organize conferences during major US cardiovascular meetings, such as AHA. We will continue to participate in major Chinese cardiovascular events. A notable opportunity will be the 20th Great Wall International Cardiology Conference/American College of Cardiology (GWICC/ACC) in the Olympic Center in Beijing in 2009. This will be the 3rd year in a roll for us to send a group of specialists to participate in the academic and other activities in GWICC/ACC. I encourage you to consider providing your input to us and possibly participating in these activities. We will continue to reach out for our membership drive. We understand in order to earn your trust and participation; we will do our best to be your voice in the current era of many challenges facing cardiovascular medicine and research. An urgent initiative is to respond to an invitation to participate in an international coalition of cardiovascular professionals with different Ethnic background. Last but not least, we will continue to work hard on the collaboration with Academy of Cardiovascular Research Excellence (ACRE), hopefully we can finally tie the knot after 3 years of excellent collaboration. A fearless leader in China used to say, “Too much work, too little time. … Millennium is too long, seize the moment.” I encourage you to write to us about your needs, speak to your colleagues in cardiovascular medicine and research about us, and, please remember we are here for you. We will prioritize your needs, i.e. career, transition, academics, practice, research, funding, education, etc, in US and China, and stay focused on those that are important to you. We are in a time of “Change”. In a few days, you will have a very different President in the White House. You may remember when he returned to that Chicago community he had worked before from Harvard University, Boston, he found his home and base. We hope CnAHA is your home and base for your professional life in the US! You will make friends here, we will grow together, and we will be your voice in the cardiovascular community and beyond. I will update you on a regular basis about our activities in the US and China, achievements of our members, career and job changes/people on the move, and the state of our association. Once again, we thank you all for your enthusiasm, help and trust. We all look forward to working with you and for you in the years to come. Happy New (Ox) Year! Shuping Ge, MD, FAAP, FACC, FASE President, CnAHA