Moving Alexandra to the franchise growth and performance team was a strategic move for Choice Hotels. By adding Alexandra, with her brand strategy background, to my team, we will be able to further build brand equity through strategic growth and additional focus on property level performance.

Our 2005 salesperson of the year award winners have brought great value to Choice as a result of their efforts. The franchise sales team had another record-breaking year with 639 executed contracts in 2005, continuing our pattern of record growth from 2004 and establishing a standard by which we will measure 2006.

One reason for the great year is that Choice provides a great return on investment to franchisees. We consider our franchisees our customers and our partners in this business, and we recognize that the best way to keep them happy is to provide a good ROI. Our sales results show that franchisees-both current and potential-recognize what a good investment it is to be a part of the Choice system.

We expect this good performance to continue in 2006 with double digit earnings growth,

I'd like to think I could do something great - a performance like Meryl Streep's in 'Sophie's Choice' - at some point in my life. At the same time, though, I don't want to put too much pressure on myself to be great.

It may not be the sort of caffeinated growth rates we've seen, but it still was a good performance. They've gone from being a computer company to a consumer electronics company.