Merit has been fortunate to have the same person handling our routing configurations for the last 5 or so years, Steve Widmayer. He has sheparded us all through the hugh growth of routing announcments and he understood the system better than anyone. to our great dismay, Steve has decided to move on, and we will miss him greatly. Since Steve's last day was Tuesday, December 13, we are now depending on Steve Richardson to help us train a new person (yet to be hired) to handle the NACRs and to help with the configuration process. Until the new person comes on board and is fully trained, we will have to move the cutoff for accepting NACRS to 09:00 EST on the day preceeding the configuration run. Please join us in wishing Steve Widmayer well in his future endeavors, and please have patience with us as we try to fill his shoes (not an easy task). --Elise