Long-Term Incentives (LTI) - For this report, LTI is any award that is delivered in a specific fiscal year, but is expected to compensate the executive for performance over a longer period of time (either prior or future performance). LTI includes Restricted Stock, Stock Options and Other Long-Term Incentive Plans.

Restricted Stock - Awards of full shares of company stock that carry some restriction (typically a vesting schedule). The value of restricted stock is reported at the full fair value of the shares on the date of the grant.

Stock Options - Stock options are a right granted to employees to purchase company stock at a fixed price at any time over a defined period (term). Options are often granted with an exercise price (purchase price) equal to the stock price at the time of the grant. In this case there is no "intrinsic value" to the option grant because there is no difference between the value of the "underlying stock" and the cost to buy it by exercising the option. However, because the share price may increase above the exercise price at some time during the term of the option, the option does have a theoretical present value today. This value is what is shown in the table above and it is based on the value of the grant reported by the company. Please note that in this report, the category "Stock Options" will also include Stock Appreciation Rights (SARs), which are similar to stock options but deliver cash equal to the gain at exercise. Also, you can find the number of shares included in this year's option grant to a specific executive by clicking on that executive's name and seeing the individual executive summary. This summary will also show the value that executive received this year by exercising prior option grants.

Note: All numbers and values of Stock Option and SAR grants are based solely on information reported in the "Option/SAR Grants Table" as required to be disclosed by SEC Regulation S-K, Part 229, Item 402(c). (Although the numbers of options/SARs granted shown on the "Summary Compensation Table" (Reg S-K, Part 229, Item 402(b)) normally correspond to the numbers on the "Option/SAR Grants Table," they are different from time to time.)

Present Value of Option Grants - The present value of the option grants is the theoretical value of all options granted to the executive during the fiscal year. The present value is calculated and reported by the company. Companies use different methods for calculating this value. Most companies calculate the present value using either the Black-Scholes option pricing model (or other similar analytical models), or they use an assumed stock appreciate rate of 5% per year and 10% per year. If they used an analytical model, that value is reported above; if they used an assumed stock appreciation rate, the value based on 5% annual appreciation is reported above.

Rank - For the purposes of comparing executive pay across companies, this report ranks the executive's pay in descending order based on their total cash compensation (base pay plus bonus). The CEO, however, is always given a rank of 1 for his/her company regardless of pay, and the other executives are then ranked "2nd highest paid", "3rd highest paid", and so on. It is important to remember not all companies report the same number of executives in their proxies. Most companies report 5 executives, but some report more and some report less. This means that the lower ranking executive averages may be based on data from fewer companies than the higher ranking executives. Therefore there is a possibility that, for example, the average TCC for 5th highest paid executive could be higher than the average TCC for the 4th highest paid executive.

The information shown here is a reporting of information included in the company's proxy statement. The proxy statement includes footnotes and explanations of this information plus other information that is pertinent in assessing the overall value and appropriateness of the compensation information. For those interested in conducting a detailed compensation analysis, we recommend that you review the entire proxy statement. You may retrieve the full proxy statement by going to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) website at www.sec.gov [www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html ] and entering the company's name and then looking in the first column for an entry of "Form DEF 14A" (or any similar code). You may also find the annual proxy statement by going directly to the company's website.

A proxy statement (or "proxy") is a form that every publicly traded U.S. company is required to file with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) within 120 days after the end of its fiscal year. The proxy must be sent to every shareholder in advance of the company's annual shareholders meeting. All proxy statements are public filings made available to the general public by the SEC.

The proxy statement's main purpose is to alert shareholders to the annual meeting and provide them information about the issues that will be voted on during the annual meeting, including decisions such as electing directors, ratifying the selection of auditors, and other shareholder-related decisions, including shareholder-initiated initiatives. Also, proxies must disclose specific detailed information regarding the pay practices for certain executives.