Dear Reader,
For the past several years I've had the pleasure of leading a group of high school youth on an annual beach retreat. Though I'll admit the bulk of our time is spent keeping the boys away from the girls' rooms and making sure no one sets the retreat center on fire, we do have an educational theme each year. This year's is Making a difference in the world, and it really has me excited.

Knowing from experience how difficult it is to keep a group of 60 teenagers age 14-18 interested – even without the ocean crashing in the background and the sun and sand beckoning – I've already begun planning my lectures. One of my go-to stories on this topic comes from an essay written in the late 1960s by American anthropologist, educator and philosopher Loren Eiseley. If you're not familiar with the story, it goes something like this:

An old man was walking on the beach one day after an evening storm when he noticed what appeared to be a young girl in the distance dancing.

As he got closer, he noticed the girl wasn't dancing at all, but reaching down into the sand, picking up small objects and gently throwing them into the surf. Curious, the old man asked the girl what she was doing. "Throwing starfish into the ocean," she replied. "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die."

Upon hearing this, the old man remarked, "Young lady, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and thousands and thousands of starfish along every mile? Why are you wasting your time? You can't possibly make a difference!"

The young girl listened politely, and then bent down yet again, scooping up another starfish and throwing it into the ocean. As it met the water, she turned, sweetly smiled and replied, "I made a difference to that one!"

Inspired, the old man joined her in a morning of tossing starfish back into the sea.

The story speaks to me not only for the relevance it has to the topic of making a difference, but because it shows the value the girl placed in the "individual" she could serve rather than focusing on the many she could not. In 2011, SAS Education taught approximately 80,000 students around the globe. Though it's an impressive number, with 55,000 sites around the world, it represents just a fraction of total SAS users. Though we'll never be able to serve every single one of the millions of users worldwide, we're committed to growing the SAS knowledge of those we can to the very best of our ability.

Our new Guaranteed to Run program is the latest example of how seriously we take this commitment. The program states that any course with at least one registration four weeks prior to the start date will run as planned. That means it all comes down to one individual – you. Simply register for a course at least four weeks in advance, and even if you're the only student to register, that class will run as scheduled. That means you'll never have to worry about nonrefundable plane tickets, a delay in that mission critical project or any other issue that depends on your timely training experience.

Our Guaranteed to Run Program is just one of a number of SAS Education’s “commitment to you” programs and services. Check out our Commitment to You Web page to learn more about this program and other user-focused pledges like our customer satisfaction guarantee, course assessments, extended learning pages, and others.

Here's to surf, sand and making a difference.

Larry LaRusso
Editor, SAS Training Report