Office Depot Honors Six Women with Its Visionary Award at Fifth Annual

Office Depot Honors Six Women with Its Visionary Award at Fifth Annual Businesswomen Conference

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    DELRAY BEACH, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 1, 2005--Last night, Office Depot, Inc. (NYSE:ODP), one of the world's leading resellers of office products and services, announced the recipients of the prestigious Office Depot Visionary Award. The awards were presented at the company's Success Strategies For Businesswomen Conference, during the Gala Awards Dinner, which was held at the Boca Raton Hotel and Club in Boca Raton, Florida.
    The Office Depot Visionary Awards were created to recognize women whose extraordinary dedication and vision have had an impact in their businesses, industries, communities, but most importantly in the lives of women. The award is presented to women in six categories including: Pioneer, Corporate, Business Entrepreneur, Sports, Non Profit and Special Honoree.
    Awards were presented to:

--	Lillian Vernon, one of America's most accomplished and well-known leaders in the direct marketing industry, headquartered in White Plains, New York, received the "Pioneer" award.
--	Barbara Krumsiek, President & CEO of Calvert Group, Ltd., a mutual fund company with over $10 billion in assets under management and best known for its family of socially responsible funds headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland received the "Corporate" award.
--	Nely Galan, Creator and Executive Producer of Fox's hit reality series, The Swan received the "Business Entrepreneur" award.
--	Catherine "Katie" Horstman, representing the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) who resides in Minster, Ohio accepted the "Sports" award. Also in attendance were seven other team members from AAGPBL.
--	Susan Corrigan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Gifts In Kind International, the world's leading charity in product philanthropy and headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia received the "Non Profit" award.
--	Alexis M. Herman, U.S. Secretary of Labor (1997-2001), the first African American to lead the Labor Department received the "Special Honoree" award.

    "We are proud to acknowledge these six extraordinary women whose vision, leadership, perseverance and commitment have helped change the lives of so many women," Chuck Rubin, Executive Vice President, Merchandising/Marketing Officer for Office Depot said. "We congratulate each of them as they are truly role models -- inspiring and empowering other women to achieve greater success in broadcast media, business, retail and sports as well as in our communities."
    Office Depot also presented a $75,000 donation to Count-Me-In, a national non-profit organization that assists women in obtaining loans to help get their businesses off the ground. Count-Me-In champions women's drive toward economic independence by providing nationwide access to micro loans, business consultation and education.
    The donation was presented by Office Depot's Chairman and CEO, Neil Austrian and Chuck Rubin to Nell Merlino, Co-Founder and CEO for Count-Me-In. - http://www.count-me-in.org
    Proceeds of the donation were the result of Office Depot's Silent Auction, during which conference attendees had the opportunity to bid on more than 300 items, including the opportunity to bid to have lunch with Office Depot executives, conference panelists, publishers and city officials. Since 2002, Office Depot has provided more than $225,000 to Count-Me-In.
    "We are grateful to Office Depot for their continued support and for providing Count-Me-In with this donation," said Merlino. "Their generosity is overwhelming and will allow us to provide women with the funding they need to start their own business who have been turned down or discouraged by commercial financial institutions," said Merlino.

    About Office Depot's Visionary Award recipients:

    http://mediarelations.officedepot.cc/successstrategies05/visionary award.html (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

    EDITORS NOTE: The Office Depot Success Strategies for Businesswomen Conference Internet Press Kit, containing background materials, press releases, digital images, biographies and more, is located at http://mediarelations.officedepot.cc/successstrategies05/.

    About the Conference

    The Office Depot Success Strategies for Businesswomen Conference was created in 2001 to provide women in business with networking opportunities, while offering programs and seminars that help them manage their businesses more successfully. The conference also spotlights female entrepreneurs from national professional women's organizations and honors them with Office Depot's "Businesswoman of the Year" awards.
    Keynote presenters at the conference include Barbara Walters, ABC Correspondent and Emmy-Award Winning Co-Host and Co-Executive Producer of "The View," Kathy Ireland, Chief Designer and CEO of Kathy Ireland Worldwide (KIWW), Dr. Maya Angelou, best-selling author and poet and Anne Mulcahy, Chairman and CEO of Xerox Corporation.
    Xerox is the presenting sponsor for the conference; platinum sponsors are MassMutual and Hewlett Packard. Other supporting sponsors include: Acco, Bic, Canon, Energizer, International Paper, JKG Group, Microsoft and Smead.

    About Office Depot

    With annual sales of more than $13 billion, Office Depot sells more office products to more customers in more countries than any other company. Incorporated in 1986 and headquartered in Delray Beach, Florida, Office Depot conducts business in 23 countries and employs 46,000 people worldwide. The Company operates under the Office Depot(R), Viking Office Products(R), Viking Direct(R), Guilbert(R), and Tech Depot(R) brand names.
    Office Depot is a leader in every distribution channel - from retail stores and contract delivery to catalogs and e-commerce. With $3.1 billion in online sales in FY'04, the Company is the world's number three Internet retailer. In North America, Office Depot has 969 retail stores in addition to a national business-to-business delivery network supported by 22 delivery centers and more than 60 local sales offices. Internationally, the Company conducts wholly-owned operations in 14 countries via 78 retail stores and 25 distribution centers, and operates 153 retail stores under joint venture and license arrangements in another seven countries.
    The company's common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ODP and is included in the S&P 500 Index. Additional press information can be found at: http://mediarelations.officedepot.com/.

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--30--CM/mi*

CONTACT: Office Depot, Delray Beach Mindy Kramer, 561-438-4276 mkramer@officedepot.com or JKG Group Lauren Garvey, 561-989-9931, ext 101 Cell: 561-702-0178 lauren@jkggroup.com

KEYWORD: FLORIDA INDUSTRY KEYWORD: CONSUMER/HOUSEHOLD RETAIL PHOTO PHOTOWIRE SOURCE: Office Depot, Inc. PHOTO: 40619

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