Mike Muhney

Hi, my name is Mike Muni, and I first want to say how proud of an American I am to be able to participate in the Freedom 250 celebration of America's birthday. I want to start with a quote by Abraham Lincoln who said, we can complain because rose bushes have thorns or we can rejoice because thorn bushes have roses. I choose the latter.

There have been thorns in America's history, some still exist, but America is the only country that has produced more roses than thorns to its citizenry. Carl Sandburg, the great American poet said, nothing happens but first a dream. I'm the beneficiary of the structure and economic system that our forefathers envisioned and the ability to dream and pursue an opportunity to take a risk without fear, without repercussion, to see if I could better myself and my family as my forefathers themselves attempted to do.

So thank you to our forefathers, but I also want to take this opportunity to thank our military, both past who have died in many cases to protect our freedoms and who served our country and our current military still to this day protecting those very freedoms. Without them, we still wouldn't exist under the vision of our forefathers.

I was born and raised in a tough part of Chicago in a blue collar family, and I didn't think I'd ever achieve what I did because of the land of opportunity that we know America to be. I'm the co-inventor of ACT software that created the CRM industry and today the co-inventor of Cantata, another software opportunity with my business partner from ACT.

So thank you America for the opportunities that you've provided me, and I salute you, our forefathers and our military. Happy birthday.