EMP-36

Greetings, EMP-36 friends. Karen Kalbacher Stevens and I are now sharing the Kellogg class notes responsibilities.

Logan Otto is doing well and continues to farm in Nebraska and promote his line of organic products. To find out more on his company log on to www.bluevalleyorganics.com.

Rick Day has had an eventful year. He started 2000 out with a cruise to Aruba. In January, he moved from Indianapolis to Scottsdale, Ariz. On May 13, he married Darra on a beautiful day in Fort Wayne, Ind. They honeymooned in Sedona, Ariz., and then took another second honeymoon in August to see many of Darra's friends in Connecticut. Upon their return they became proud parents of a Great Dane called Shakespeare. Rick has been busy working for a company that keeps changing its name (Allied Signal to Honeywell and soon to be General Electric) while Darra has filled her time decorating their home before she returns to the work world. If you are in the Scottsdale area, give Rick a call.

Kirby Wadsworth continues to excel as one of the leaders of a dynamic new company, Storability. They have a new headquarters in Southborough, Mass., and continue to rapid global expansion with new offices in Sydney, Brisbane, Hong Kong and London. In November, they hosted an all company reunion with the highlight of the weekend being working on an environmental service project at the Audubon Society's Broadoor Wildlife Reservation in Natick, Mass. Altogether, they worked 600 hours clearing brush, cleaning trails and spreading woodchips on nature trails. This is an example of great philanthropic effort by a fellow EMP-36er.

In mid August, Ralph Evans left Appleton Papers to join the Fox River Paper Co., as vice president of human resources. Fox River Paper is a privately owned company, which specializes in text, cover and premium writing papers. Since the company is located in Appleton, Wis. Stephanie and Ralph did not have to relocate. Ralph sends his greetings and well wishes to everyone.

Mark Nini recently formed and leads GN Ventures, which is a vehicle to hold his company's technology investments. He focuses on early stage software companies, with niche plays and invests $100,000 to 250,000 in each. They do five to seven deals a year. Mark's focus since he left Kellogg has been technology and he believes his Kellogg education is paying off. He adds, "I'm having a blast." The Nini family, including Julia (7) and Jack (4) continues to live in Houston. Shannon spends a good deal of time volunteering and shuffling the kids between activities. Mark recently invested in a company that offers RFID products similar to my former division at Brady. Last week he met with a director (and colleague of mine) of a newly acquired company by Brady. What a small world!

Marilyn Bushnell has retained the fun part of her VP job at Newell/Rubbermaid without the admin portion and stress. She is busy traveling often and balancing family life. Grace is now in 4th grade and Ross is now in kindergarten. Cade has been busy harvesting and soil sampling with his agriculture business, which is doing very well. Marilyn reports that Doug Guendel joined Pearson LLC in Indianapolis last April. How is it going, Doug?

I have some exciting news to report. As many of you know, Bill and I were accepted into an adoption program over two years ago with The Gladney Center in Forth Worth, Texas. This past year we came close with two adoptions -- one in April (we were at the birth) and a second in November. Unfortunately neither of these worked out in our favor but we continued to remain optimistic. We were scheduled to leave Christmas Day for a two-week trip to California. On Dec. 24, we decided to cancel our trip, stay home and enjoy our time off in the Wisconsin snow. Very unexpectedly on the 28th, we received a call from a birthmother who told us she had selected us to be the parents of her new son who was born three weeks early.

 

	EMP-36 rep Cindy Seemann and her husband Bill adopted their son William in December.

The next 72 hours were a blur! We braved two midwestern snowstorms, black ice and snow in Texas, and cancelled flights trying to get to get to San Angelo, Texas, by New Year's Eve day. We finally made it to our destination to the meet the wonderful birthparents, pick up our new son and take him home from the hospital and then drive back to Dallas to wait out the legal interstate adoption paperwork. Everything went through very quickly and we were able to return home to Wisconsin after eight days in Texas.

William Harry Seemann III was born on Dec. 26 weighing in at 5 pounds, 13 ounces and eighteen inches long (he is now tipping the scales at 10+ pounds at seven weeks). He is the joy of our lives and has proved that dreams can come true!

We hope you and your families are doing well. Your friends in EMP-36 are interested in what you are up to. Please send an e-mail or call us with updates.