The first annual meeting of the Rocky Mountain Regional Center of Excellence took place from October 2-4 at the Hilton-Fort Collins. Participants from across the 600,000 square mile region, along with NIH representatives, gathered for two days of intense and truly exciting discussions outlining the missions, projects, cores and goals of this exciting new Center. Following a clear outlining of the goals of our RCE, exciting and open presentations were made on the variety of bacterial and viral zoonoses projects that are aimed to provide basic and translational research in understudied areas of select agent research. An aggressive career development program to offer training in basic/clinical/translational work involving these BSL-3 pathogens was also outlined. This was by no means your typical 'dog and pony' showcase annual meeting - the scientific excitement in the room was truly palpable as researchers from across the Rocky Mountain region are gearing up and working together to develop the next generation of diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines for these biopathogens. All gauges are pointing to truly exciting times ahead for select agent researchers (and hard times for zoonotic biopathogens!). Check out the Rocky Mtn RCE website at http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/mip/rmrce/.