READY FOR THE NEXT 10 YEARS

2004 was Cinergy’s 10th anniversary. I am proud to lead the great men and women who work for this company. They produced our decade of progress and I thank them for their accomplishments.

I want to thank our shareholders for investing in us over the long-term and our customers who give us the opportunity to exceed their expectations every day. I am grateful for the support of our board, our suppliers and partners, and for the vision of our policymakers and regulators. We look forward to continued stewardship in our communities. We all share a commitment to look out for the future generations. This is the common ground that unites us as stakeholders.

As you read the interviews on global warming in the next section, I believe you will find one attitude that runs through just about all the commentary — humility. It’s not a word you’d expect to find in an annual report. Yet it is fundamental if we are going to listen and learn from each other. Contrary to what some people believe, humility doesn’t lessen the strength and conviction of our leaders, but it can help to clear our vision. We need humility to successfully address an issue the size and scale of global warming.

In this report, we are experimenting with a collaborative process. We’ve asked our stakeholders to give us their perspectives on the global warming issue. It is a first step toward a collaborative decision-making process on this complex topic. We thank our stakeholders for sharing their candid thoughts and opinions, and most of all, for their willingness to work with us in finding common ground.

I believe in the possibilities of such a process to resolve this and other issues. My belief in the power of this process was furthered by a recent speech by Bill Ruckelshaus, former U.S. EPA administrator and a contributor to this annual report. On February 3, 2005, at the John H. Chafee Memorial Lecture on Science and the Environment in Washington, D.C., Bill said:

“ The value of utter transparency, inclusiveness and a willingness to listen and adapt is front and center an essential precept of our democracy. Increasingly for many of our environment and natural resource problems, we are seeking to resolve them by the use of collaborative processes.”

When you read the quotes from our stakeholders in the next section of this report and their interviews on Cinergy.com, you will learn a lot from their wisdom about what’s at stake for the future of our world and our company. Based on their perspectives and their passion to find common ground on global warming, I am optimistic about Emma’s, and all of my grandchildren’s, future on this planet.

James E. Rogers
President, Chief Executive Officer and
Chairman of the Board
March 1, 2005