First and foremost, I want to thank Jenna Brien, our enthusiastic in-house sales associate. For those of you who have had the pleasure of meeting Jenna, you know she’s a ball of energy whose true passion in life is teaching spin and being around her husband Will. Jenna and I laugh so much together that our office manger, Belinda Jordan, said we’d sell an additional million bars if we’d simply quit goofing off so much. From that moment on, I realized that Belinda, a 20-year-old college student, was the smartest employee I had! The problem is, she laughs at all of my jokes and impersonations, and that of course only fuels my antics. Regardless, Belinda’s a real gem and things just wouldn’t work around here with her.

This post wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Darcy Pendarvis. Darcy could be the CFO of a major corporation but prefers to help out Orange County, Calif., companies with their bookkeeping, payroll, and banking/financial strategy. As a QuickBooks Pro Advisor, Darcy is able to provide me with all of the financial info I need at a moments notice. Without her, I know we wouldn’t be around. She has saved me many times and I cannot thank her enough.

Christian Riggs is one of our freelance graphic designers. He’s outrageously under-priced, lives in Utah with his wife Amy and their four gorgeous kids, and is one wickedly cool guy. Check out his work at www.riggscreative.com. Christian is responsible for our new logo and packaging (thanks to Becky Nelson for giving us the original concept), and he also does a great job on our print ads, eNewsletters, and many of the other collateral materials that keep us in business. Thanks, Christian!

No one laughs more at me or my jokes than my publicist/business consultant, Stan (last name withheld for fear that he’d come to my home and waterboard me for getting his name indexed by Google or some other search engine). Stan’s more than just my publicist and business consultant… he’s a true friend and a brilliant business tactician. Thanks, Stan!

Here at PureFit, we work with so many nutritionists and Celiac specialists that it’s hard to thank them all. Nevertheless, I’d like to mention Kim Brown, Danna Korn (author of Gluten-Free Living For Dummies), Dr. Bari Rooney, and Melinda Dennis. Thank you–each and everyone of you–for all of your sage advice and referrals!

Needless to say, if you’ve made it this far in today’s post, you must be wondering who I owe the utmost thanks too, and that of course would be my wife Traci, who in 2000 encouraged me to “go for it.” She allowed me to take what little money we had and start PureFit, and now, some eight years later, we’re still here, kicking the nutrition bar industry’s butt. Thanks, Traci… you truly are the best!

Thanks to everyone else who make us great (and yes, that includes you Kilee, and you too Pikachu… the two of you may act like dogs, eat dog food, beg for treats and table scraps, and even walk around the office on all fours, but I know that you know that I know that you guys can read!)

Let’s pretend for a moment that we had been blogging since our establishment in July of 2000. If you had been following our blog, you would certainly remember the excitement we shared with you when:

1. We were chosen as Bike Magazine’s Nutrition Bar of the Year in 2004.
2. You would also recall the pride we expressed when we announced we were donating 20,000 PureFit Nutrition Bars to U.S. troops in Iraq through Operation Gratitude in August of 2007.
3. No doubt you would recall our enthusiastic support of the Best Friends Animal Society, Challenged Athletes Foundation, Celiac Sprue Association, and City of Hope.
4. You would have also read about new flavors, new reviews, new packaging, and wider distribution–we would have written about it all.

Many of you know that instead of writing blog entries, we were traveling. You saw us at more than 100 events around the country, but had we been blogging, many more of you would remember our blog entries chronicling the PureFit Team’s relentless travel schedule intended to get our bars into the hands of fitness enthusiasts, athletes, and the people who need them most, like celiacs and diabetics. We are, after all, happiest when we can be face-to-face with any individual committed to good health through nutrition and exercise.

You would of course also remember reading numerous blog entries about the exploits of Kilee and Pikachu (don’t worry, there will be much more to come about these canine PureFit pundits-they really do run the show!) and the rest of the PureFit Team.

In short, if we had been blogging over the past seven years, you would recall seven years worth of stories about bringing the best bar to market. Seven years of blood, sweat and tears in pursuit of the most nutritious energy bar available. Seven years of overwhelming pride in our product (and you would know we’re most proud of what our bars DON’T contain-no dairy, wheat, gluten, artificial sweeteners, hydrogenated oils, trans fats or sugar alcohols). Seven years of passion for educating you about how to achieve optimum health and fitness through nutrition and exercise.

In the final equation, while we are a company that makes a very competitive, award-winning product, which has traveled the world with some of the top performing athletes of the 21st century, we are really just people (and two dogs) who care about the well-being of other people (and dogs). That’s where our company began, and that’s what our blog is really all about. It is an opportunity to connect on a more personal level with you, for you are way more than just customers to us.

Welcome to the PureFit Blog-welcome to the PureFit family. The next seven years are going to be incredible.