Welcome from the CDC general chair

Welcome to Atlanta and the 49
^th
IEEE Conference on Decision and Control. The CDC is the IEEE Control Systems Society's premier annual event and is organized in cooperation with the European Union Control Association (EUCA), the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) and the Japanese Society for Instrument and Control Engineers (SICE). This is the first time that the CDC has been held in Atlanta and we hope that the southern charms of the city, the ease of access, and the many activities we have planned in addition to the strong technical program will make this an enjoyable and memorable event for you.