2004 Annual Charlottesville Chamber Dinner - November 30th.
Knight Kiplinger, Leading Economics Journalist & Business Forecaster, to Give Keynote

Chamber Mc Intire Citizenship Award to be Presented

(Charlottesville, Virginia - October 1) The Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce today announced that Knight Kiplinger, the nationally-renowned economics journalist and business forecaster, will deliver the keynote address at the 2004 Annual Chamber Dinner, Tuesday, November 30th at the Omni Charlottesville Hotel. Also at the dinner, the Chamber will award its 30th Paul Goodloe McIntire Citizenship Award to a distinguished area citizen.

The Annual Chamber Dinner -- co-sponsored by State Farm Insurance Companies, Hantzmon, Wiebel & Company, CPAs and SPRINT -- attracts more than 400 business & community leaders from throughout the Greater Charlottesville Region.

A Chamber "networking" reception begins at 5:30PM; the dinner service begins at 6:30PM. Also, throughout the evening, an on-going silent auction will offer for bid, several thousand dollars worth items from a wide range of Chamber member enterprises.

"Knight Kiplinger is one of America's most respected economic journalists and business forecasters," said Ivo Romenesko, Founder and President of Appraisal Group, Inc. who serves as 2004 Chairman of the Chamber Board of Directors. "We are fortunate to hear Mr. Kiplinger's clarity and foresight at our Annual Chamber Dinner - our region's premier business event."

Mr. Kiplinger is editor in chief of The Kiplinger Letter, Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine and KiplingerForecasts.com. The Kiplinger Letter, a weekly publication started in 1923, today has more than 250,000 subscribers. Kiplinger's Personal Finance, the first magazine in the field of personal money management, was founded in 1947 and today has a monthly circulation of more than one million. The organization's newest venture, KiplingerForecasts.com, is a daily forecasting service that alerts executives to coming changes in economic conditions, demographics, technology, politics and government regulation.

Mr. Kiplinger came to the Kiplinger organization in 1983, following 13 years in newspaper journalism as a Washington correspondent and editor. For six years he was Washington bureau chief for Ottaway Newspapers, Inc., a chain of 22 daily papers owned by Dow Jones & Company.

In the late 1980s Mr. Kiplinger co-authored two best-selling forecast books which contradicted the prevailing pessimism of that time, accurately predicting that the United States would set the global pace for economic growth and technology leadership in the 1990s. In his most recent book, World Boom Ahead (1998), Mr. Kiplinger forecast that the U.S. will continue to benefit from soaring productivity and surging trade with the expanding economies of Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.

Mr. Kiplinger is a frequent guest on CNN and CNBC. He is a regular commentator on "Marketplace," the daily business report heard on public radio stations nationwide. He also has appeared on "Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser," "The Today Show," "CBS This Morning" and "The Larry King Show."

A graduate of Cornell University, Mr. Kiplinger did graduate study in international affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University.

The Chamber will also award its prestigious Paul Goodloe McIntire Citizenship Award at the Dinner. The Chamber of Commerce established this award in 1975 to recognize outstanding citizen contributions to the greater Charlottesville area. The Award is named in honor of Paul Goodloe McIntire, "É whose good will set a standard of service that others through the years have reached for while helping to weave a fabric of selflessness that continues to provide for our community and its citizens."

Tickets to the 2004 Annual Chamber Dinner are available at the Chamber offices in Charlottesville at 434.295.3141. Cost to attend is $70 per person; a limited number of "Inner Circle" dinner sponsor tables of ten are available to Chamber member enterprises at $1,000.

The Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce is dedicated to representing private enterprise, promoting business and enhancing the quality of life in our greater Charlottesville communities. The Chamber 's 1,200 member enterprises employ more than 45,000 people in our community, generating a total payroll of more than $1.3 billion each year.


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