Congratulations go out to the Control Risks/Merlin Challenge Event team for raising $3,000 and winning first place in the Big Sur Mud Run corporate team competition. The event took place on March 28, 2009, at California State University Monterrey Bay campus.

The team calling itself "Risky Business," included runners Alex Cottin, Ryan Murphy, Merrit Kennedy, Matt Skinner, and Valon Xharra, who triumphed over the extreme terrain of the rugged five-mile course. Under the watch of tough drill sergeants, the team successfully sprinted up vertical hills and slogged through deep mud pits to reach the finish line first.

"We are really very proud of our team," says Lucy Dorick, director of Merlin USA. "They tripled their fund raising goal in a few short weeks."

The Mud Run, which was Merlin's first challenge event in the US, highlights Control Risks' generous, long-term support for Merlin, as well as a successful and enduring partnership.

Lucy Dorick notes that the ultimate winners are the thousands of vulnerable people Merlin helps every day worldwide. "These funds will go toward training midwives in Liberia and Afghanistan or providing mobile clinics to homeless survivors in cyclone-battered Myanmar."

To learn more about this challenge and to make a donation, please visit our page at http://www.firstgiving.com/control-risks.

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