I originally wanted to recognize the thousands of veterinary practices, which our consulting firm, Catanzaro & Associates, Inc., dba Veterinary Consulting International^® (VCI^®), have supported, as they converted to team-based healthcare delivery, and to the hundreds of variations they have developed and implemented to the systems and schedules presented in this and similar publications from our consulting firm. They have caused many revisions of this text to occur just during the writing.

Many thanks to the following professionals, who have contributed to this book.

Dr. Judi Leake (Mississippi State 1982) was asked to be a colleague in this effort, being a successful veterinary practice builder herself, a noted speaker, and a long-time friend. With her help, we've attempted to eliminate any gender bias or generational paradigms.

Dr. E. Sam Morris (Illinois 1976) is one of the most diagnostically intense practitioners we have ever found, as well as a successful veterinary practice builder. With her insights, it was our goal to eliminate the old empirical treatment habits and address the ambulatory paradigms remaining from pennies-per-hundred-weight (cwt). With the Big Red Barn in Crete, Illinois, and her depressed community's challenges, Sam has proven that anything is possible, when you just commit your heart to your mission focus and nurture the healthcare team to address pet parent awareness training as an expectation. Sam is specially recognized here, as she did the content editing for this team to release the text to Veterinary Information Network (VIN).

Jim Humphries, DVM, has provided some communication insights. His long-time participation in the media and veterinary public relations field provided us the valuable insights he has tried to share for and with this profession for decades. Jim has a way of presenting his material in a manner that drives the message to the heart, at the client and staff level, rather than at the science and technology level so often experienced with veterinary industry and professional associations.

This book is dedicated to all those who have helped this consulting team mature and get better, our consulting partners, often termed "clients" by others, and to our corporate stockholders of Catanzaro & Associates, Inc., dba Veterinary Consulting International^® (VCI^®). Yes, we actually have shareholders, and the gauntlet of change and progress is being passed to the next generation of veterinary consultants: Philip Seibert, Jr, CVT; Judi Leake, DVM; Thom Haig, DVM; Susan Strattman, CVPM; Alison Chiswell, DVM, MBA; Steve Amsberry, DVM; and Dr. Karen Koks from Australia. It is also being dedicated to the dozen active consultants on the team, and the half-dozen in our incubator, who are still learning the demands of consulting our way. It is dedicated to those special "colleague" consultants like: Ed Guiducci, JD.; Jim Shirey, DVM, MS; Karyn Gavzer, MBA, CVPM; Ross Clark, DVM; Paul Pion, DVM; Linda Lehman-Murphy, MBA; Steve Fisher, DVM: Jack Stephens, DVM; Owen McCafferty, CPA; Roger Cummings, CVPM; Marty Becker, DVM; Bernie Kouma; Terry Hall, DVM, CFP; Larry Gates, Mark Hafen, Tony Cochrane of Animal Arts Architects; Marsha Heinke, DVM, CPA; Todd Allen, JD; and the active supporters of the newly formed Association of Veterinary Practice Management Consultants & Advisors (www.avpmca.org). These are the brains of tomorrow, and they are the consultants to lead the changes needed for all to have a better veterinary profession.

The most sincere thank you needs to go to the staff members of the thousands of veterinary practices we have supported. They have been our trainers. As they share questions and shed light on our implementation efforts, we change the VCI^® Signature Series monographs^© and our tailoring styles of the consults. After we have experienced a repetition and growth experience, it often becomes a VCI^® Signature Series monograph^©. Then the VCI^® Signature Series monographs^© often become parts of the texts we share with the profession. The knowledge we share in these texts belong to the staffs of many practices. They are the proving ground, often in spite of their traditional doctors, but that is another story. To the staff members in veterinary practices across the country, to those practices we have touched in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and others across the seas in other countries, this book is for you! We thank you.

A special "thank you" to Elizabeth K. (Libby) Schultz. She's a fellow Scouter, a long-time friend, and the former in-house editor for Catanzaro & Associates from a decade ago. Libby helped me put together and make sense of Volumes 1 and 2 of Building the Successful Veterinary Practice to send to Iowa State University Press for publication, before she left us to pursue her landscape career passion. Not many employees return to work once they have departed for greener pastures (that is a pun, plus reality). Libby's an exception. When I contacted her to ask if she'd be interested in helping to see me through this final book, she said "yes", without hesitation. She knows my writing habits and style. I believe she agreed to do it out of friendship, not to mention her love of editing, but she had the good sense to charge me for her time and skills. Regardless, I appreciate all she's done for me and you, the reader!

On a personal note, thanks go to the friends, colleagues, and other people across the United Sates, Canada, Japan, Australia, and other points of the compass, who have been praying to their own supreme beings, for the recovery of my son Michael from a severe brain trauma during the fall of 2003 and still continuing into 2007, when this text went to print. Like my daughter Deborah, who had a similar left temporal lobe brain destruction fifteen years ago, brain damage is NEVER fully resolved. The person is never the same. Deborah is now a linear thinker, yet functions well, while in the case of Michael, he improves each week, and we can ask for no more.

Also, the time for writing this book has come from our extended family's time, as well as many friendship times, but never our client's time or my Scouting time. As such, we must thank them for enduring the intense focus we have when creating and writing. On the other hand, my eight-year-old granddaughter Jessica notices when I am not there to play games with her. But my three-year-old grandson Dale does not seem to miss my presence. Yet, Dale is more tolerant of me, especially as a smiling three-year-old guy.

Thomas E. Catanzaro
May 2007, Golden, Colorado