For nearly 20 years, outgoing CEO Dave Moffatt has been a leader, an inspiration and a guiding figure to those of us at Prentke Romich.

As he transitions to the next phase of his life, Dave would like to thank many of YOU who have been an inspiration to him. Below is a letter he asked we publish on this, his first full day of retirement.

But first: Thank you for all you've done, Dave. Best wishes to YOU – and enjoy!

As some of you know, I’m transitioning out of my staff role at PRC and David Hershberger has assumed his role as the new Chief Executive Officer. Dave H has an extraordinary background and experience in our field, he’s got a great team at PRC and Saltillo and he’s going to be a terrific leader of this organization.

I do want to thank all of you who use AAC for all that you’ve contributed to PRC and to me personally. I started to craft emails to each of you but stopped for fear that I was going to leave someone out. But you know who you are… Brandon, Anthony, Peter, Jen, Faye, Rick, Michael, David, Brad, Vic, Jon, Scott, Gus, Kim, Bac, Schuyler, Ami, Kate, Chris, Noah, Todd, Lucas…the list goes on and on. Michael, you were the first person using AAC that I had the opportunity to really get to know. The ‘Not dead yet’ pin that you took from your wheelchair and gave to me has been on my wall since our lunch nearly 18 years ago and it’s coming home with me.

All of you do something extraordinary every day… you show the world what is possible when you have the technology, the language and the support. Many of you have provided ideas and insights into our solutions that have resulted in improvements for everyone. And all of you have been willing to share your time to help educate parents, consumers, professionals and legislators. You probably can’t appreciate how much impact you’ve had on the lives of others over the years.

Now, to be completely truthful you aren’t saints (well, Faye, Jen and Schuyler might be pretty close.) You’ve given me a really hard time occasionally. Some of that I very clearly deserved and some of it was just you all being ornery. And you can be very creative when you’re being ornery. Fair enough and in truth I enjoyed all of our interactions.

When you look at the past 15-20 years in this field it is tempting to be happy about how far we’ve come. I suggest we should all try to avoid that temptation. There is so much more to do. We need better and faster access to AAC technology, we need more and more skilled clinical support for consumers and more tools for families to advocate for and then support the use of AAC. And we need more access to education and to meaningful work. Most of all we need to continue to foster a world that focuses on and values all of our unique abilities.

Thanks to all of you for everything you have done and will do. Getting to know you has been my pleasure and I wish all of you every success in your futures.

David Moffatt