Building on the work of previous Editors-in-Chief and with the efforts of the current editorial team, the Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention (JCRP) continues to be a leading journal in the field of cardiopulmonary rehabilitation and prevention. Manuscript submissions continue to steadily increase over time. Submissions have increased from 89 in 2007 to 163 in 2012 and to 235 in 2017, with submissions for 2018 on pace to likely surpass the 2017 total. The successes of JCRP are the direct results of the efforts of authors who submit increasingly higher-quality manuscripts, peer reviewers who are skilled and conscientious, a dedicated editorial team, and a publisher that produces a high-quality journal.

During the last almost 5 years while I have been the Editor-in-Chief, the Journal has implemented several improvements. With the help of the graphics experts at our publisher, a new design and look for the Journal was implemented. An important change to the editorial team was the addition of an Associate Editor-in-Chief position in 2017. This change allowed for a more streamlined process for managing submissions and provided resources to address some behind-the-scenes administrative functions of JCRP. More recently, we started publishing some online-only articles that expedites the publishing process and adds to the content in each issue. Two important tasks were accomplished earlier this year, with a revision of the Instructions for Authors and the implementation of an Author Submission Checklist that is required with every manuscript submission.

The end of December of this year will mark the end of the fifth year for which I will have been the Editor-in-Chief, and it is time to turn those responsibilities over to someone else. It has been both a privilege and an enjoyable experience to have had the opportunity to be in this position, but, as they say, all good things must come to an end. This issue of JCRP is my last as the Editor-in-Chief, and I am very pleased to announce that Lenny Kaminsky, PhD, will be the new Editor-in-Chief as of January 1, 2019. Lenny is the current Associate Editor-in-Chief but has also been a reviewer and an Associate Editor. He is the John and Janice Fisher Distinguished Professor of Wellness and Professor of Clinical Exercise Physiology at Ball State University. Lenny has been involved in cardiac rehabilitation since 1984 and is an accomplished researcher with more than 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals. His research has focused on applied clinical exercise physiology and cardiorespiratory fitness, and he is the cofounder of the FRIEND Registry, a national and international database for developing reference standards for cardiorespiratory fitness based on data from cardiopulmonary exercise testing. Lenny and I have been working on this transition much of this year, and I have every confidence that Dr Kaminsky will do an outstanding job of leading the Journal. Congratulations to Lenny.

There are many people I would like to thank for their efforts and support during the past 5 years. First, thank you to all of our authors; peer reviewers; Andrea Allison-Williams, who is the Senior Publisher for the Journal at Wolters Kluwer Health; and the team of production professionals working at the publisher, led by Kevin Brosky, our Production Editor. My gratitude also goes to the Associate Editors for their dedication to JCRP: Michael Berry, Jerry Fleg, Bonnie Sanderson, Patrick Savage, Ray Squires, and Jim Stone. Furthermore, I want to thank our Literature Update Editors Pete Brubaker and Sanjay Kalra and the Content Editor, Karen Hardy, for their valuable contributions. Finally, I want to extend a special thank you to our Managing Editor, Kate Maude, who has done a terrific job in support of authors, reviewers, and the entire editorial team. I have greatly enjoyed working with these dedicated and talented team members who have been instrumental in advancing the standing of the Journal.

In closing, I want to leave you with the following thoughts. JCRP provides a unique service to health care and research professionals as one of the few journals focused entirely on publishing research in cardiopulmonary rehabilitation. Since the first national clinical rehabilitation guideline on cardiac rehabilitation was published in 1995, it has been evident that published research findings have been the cornerstone of advances in clinical practice, health care policy, and insurance reimbursement policy in cardiopulmonary rehabilitation. Research continues to be important in documenting new ideas that improve outcomes and patient experiences and therefore important to shaping the future of cardiopulmonary rehabilitation. The Journal has occasionally used the phrase, "You can't lead if you don't read." Whether you are a clinician, researcher, or a health care policy maker, I encourage you to keep using JCRP, as well as other peer-reviewed journals, as a source of information to help inform your programming ideas, opinions, and decisions concerning cardiopulmonary rehabilitation.

Best wishes and happy reading.

Larry F. Hamm, PhD, MAACVPR, FACSM

Editor-in-Chief