2000

Andy Ford '00 married Emily Hazlett '01 in July. The couple was surrounded by Kellogg School friends.

Andy Ford got married to Emily Hazlett ’01 on July 7, 2001, in Wheeling, W.V. Shawn Makhijani, Steve McLaughlin, Andy Jacobson, Andy Kelly, Greg Barber, Jeff Miller, Susanna Allshouse, Kim Baldini, Erin Kenny, Liz Kaiser and I all joined in the festivities and partied with the happy couple until an hour that would make Keith Richards cringe. (I want to stress that anyone who may or may not have rolled down a hill on the golf course at the country club in her pink dress and pink hat would have only done so under extreme duress from the likes of Greg Barber. Moreover I don’t know anything about the potted flower incident). A fabulous weekend all around, with a little bonus for the business women in the congregation — a lesson in how to spell “Czechoslovakia.”

Angela Smith and Darryl Cobb got married Nov. 10 the Basilica at Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. I was lucky enough to attend the wedding, which was, by the way, breathtaking. Kellogg loves a Kellogg merger (especially when they are both from our class!) and the Kellogg friends turned out in-force: Mtu and Lisa Pugh, Holly (Bruno) Coleman, Liz Kaiser, Glen Hastings, Anthony Humphrey, Sara Milsten, Eric Roberson, Kamau Woodard, Deanna Barnes ’99, Chelsea Lattimer Smith ’99, James Smith ’98, Tanya Smith and Mark Randall. Also, in what may be the biggest news of all: Darryl does in fact dance! (The couple danced to “At Last” by Etta James, which is such a great song.)

Carol Henry married to William Bankhead on April 28, 2001, in Hartford, Conn., where guests partook in a sumptuous Jamaican feast! Many Kellogg friends were able to meet Carol’s relatives, several of whom lent considerable insight into where Carol’s eccentricities come from. Representing the Kellogg contingent at the wedding were Leticia Soto ’02, who provided tremendous emotional support as a bridesmaid and Trista Bridges, Stephanie Prial, Kirsten Kingseed, and Frances Ofosu-Amaah all showed up for support from the stands. Carol and William honeymooned in Paris where they stayed at a cute little hotel and were lucky enough to bump into Trista Bridges again along with Mark Bivens.

Pooja Grover was married to Anan Bala Christian on Oct. 28-30, (and you thought a full Catholic Mass was long) in New Delhi. Marc Suidan and Leonard Chan attended.

Mtu Pugh and Lisa Givens (JD/MBA ’02) got married on Sept. 2 in Charlotte, N.C. Kellogg attendees included: Darryl and Angela Cobb, Mark Randall, Shaun Hawkins, Lisa Cowan ’99, Anthony Humphrey, Liz Kaiser, Jon Cho, Nicole Walker, Holly Coleman, Tanya Smith, Martin Rubinstein, Chris Lutton, Roshawn Blunt, Abe Han, Christian and Sashonda Warren. As far as table dances and general wackiness, in what must be one of the biggest surprises of the year, Kellogg grads were well behaved, soft-spoken, hell, even shy! Mtu said that to his knowledge there were no shenanigans worthy of mentioning in this report. Given Nikki Walker’s partying program in the Pacific Rim, I find this somewhat unlikely.

If you recall, right before the Sept. 11 attacks, I was sponsoring a contest called Kellogg Kueen (or King) for a Day where our classmates compete with each other by sharing their sad stories, tales of woe, and righteous indignation. (This idea is largely derived from a bad 50’s game show called “Queen-for-a-Day” where several women told their sob stories on national television and then the one with the saddest story was awarded “Queen for a Day.” I believe a Maytag washer/dryer was usually awarded as a Royal Grand Prize. The other contestants got, in addition to another data point for their growing “Serious Injury Lists,” nothing.)

Many of you have been asking to hear the results and frankly, if I had received any results, I wouldn’t have to make them up — apparently no one wanted to exploit their own misery for a few lousy bucks. So, I am using my judicial discretion to choose, as the winner, someone who didn’t technically enter: Steve McLaughlin’s car, Flop 33, who died an undignified death when Steve and Sue Allshouse upgraded to a very sexy Passat. Steve didn’t even bother to keep the plates to commemorate the passing. Since this is a posthumous award, the money ($100) will be endowed as a named scholarship (The Flop 33 Fund) for the Kellogg student who has the silliest license plate upon matriculation. With a decent fund manager, the lucky student should be receiving about 73 cents per academic quarter.

Every now and then I use this column for shameless self-promotion. This is such a case.

My big news is that I have (pick your favorite euphemism) “left” Deloitte Consulting. Armed with enough severance to choke a gnat and my charm and good looks, I have started my own business in children’s and family photography.

The business is focused on candid portraiture — which is a very “un-posed” and natural style that yields results along the lines of the famous Life magazine pictures of little John-John pulling on Jackie Kennedy’s pearls. To see what I have done, check out www.quintessenceimaging.com.

In the meantime, I have been looking for ways to shore up addition cash. Lately, I have been thinking that my Enron TG cup may be worth money on the collectibles circuit… you know, if properly preserved, my grandchildren might be able to get on Antiques Roadshow and find out that a mint condition Enron mug, circa 2000, is worth more than the whole damn company got on the auction block in 2002. I bet if we could somehow get a set of six together we might be able to buy, say, Rhode Island.

I’ll tell you what: I went into to business for myself because fundamentally I didn’t want to work for anybody else. However, if I did work for someone else, I would want a job where I run around theme parks all day, riding rides and watching shows during the work day. This is Pamela Ng’s unbelievably cool new job. She is the strategic business development manager for Universal CityWalk Hollywood — a newly created position where she has to figure out what to do with the job. Actually Pamela told me that so far the work has been really interesting — a lot like Fin D. (Don’t remember having any marathon Fin D meetings at Six Flags, but maybe Pamela was in a better group than me.) If you are in L.A., you should look up Pamela because I hear that soon she will be getting her “front of the line pass,” her “free food pass,” and her “free movies all the time pass.” With all that work, she could need an intern.

In an effort to continue to lifetime learning process and contribute to the Kellogg curriculum, a group of our classmates have gotten to together to rewrite the DeBeers case. Steve McLaughlin, Sue Allshouse, Kendra Stearns, Maria Montano, Missy McCready, Jennifer Gosselin, Josh Gellert, Beth Palmer, Kevin Harris, Justine Dube, Robin O’Connell, Mimi Green, Andy Lescher, Kristin Stewart, Mark Bivens, Trista Bridges, John Rakowski and Emily Gellady will all be contributing to ensuring that the mostly current thought leadership is included in this favorite business school case.

Every time I get an e-mail message from Geoff Mattson, I remember how much I miss him. Geoff wrote to tell me that Howard Stern did a version of Queen for a Day too, only HS gave out a pair of fake boobs (can you say that in Kellogg World?). I am not sure if Geoff was hoping that I would offer that as a prize or if he was implying that I need that as a prize. Seriously, Geoff recently moved to Atlanta to do investment grade bond sales. The hours are substantially better, and he says the work is so much more fun than junk bond research that he was doing in NYC. He is even adjusting to the south and will probably be sipping Lynchburg Lemonade on the back stoop before long.

Tanya Smith is back in Brussels. Besides drowning herself in Belgian Beer and bloating up on Godiva chocolate (her words, not mine) there isn’t much else to do. (I suspect this was probably the company’s plan all along) Apparently, it doesn’t get light until 8:30 a.m. and it’s dark right around 4:00 p.m. Tanya gets her share of Kellogg visitors (like Nikki Walker stopped by on her way to Hong Kong) and makes road trips to London and Paris (to catch Trena Drayton in London and Trista Bridges and Mark Bivens in Paris)

Michael Helmicki recently joined Edison Venture Fund as a vice president. He is pleased to announce the birth of his second child, Katherine Elizabeth.

Marcie Vu, Natalie Long and Kim Stanley had a fabulous impromptu trip to the Sundance Film Festival in Park City. They got to rub elbows with a few famous folks including Roger Ebert. Unfortunately they missed Matt Damon and Ben Affleck by a few minutes. Guess those boys got off easy!

Jonathan Mugler let me know that he ran into Andrew Boyle, his wife and Tom Joyce while Jonathan was on Sanibel Island vacationing with his girlfriend. They all spent New Year’s together listening to a terrible reggae band and talking about all of their unemployed friends. (It is entirely possible this is what Marie Antoinette was doing right before Madame Defarge and the gang lopped off her head).

Speaking of France, Stacey Lawrence, who has been in Paris since shortly after graduation, has given up potential fame and fortune flippin’ crepes and has taken a job with a French software start-up called Asterop. Don’t ask me what the name means. I think it’s the name of a constellation or star. At press time, Stacey said he didn’t have a title yet, but the position is sort of a marketing and business development mix related to our international expansion. Stacey writes, “As the only American at the company, I am not sure they know exactly what to do with me.” Stacey, as long as you don’t suggest some sort of co-branding and expansion of Euro-Disney in downtown Paris, I think you’ll be just fine.

Jason Scarlett and his wife Kathryn moved to Indianapolis in June. Jason took a job with Eli Lilly, doing marketing strategy for their cancer drugs.

The MMM mafia has been gearing up for the biggest event of the year (besides the Manufacturing Conference, of course): the celebrity death match between Nicole Walker and Justine Dube. Nikki is heading up the marketing unit for Guidant and Justine is her arch rival J&J Cordis. Justine had better watch out since Nikki has been talking smack as she travels all over Asia, entertains clients and parties her face off. She also spends four hours every day in the gym to keep her metabolism like that of a 20-year-old. However, I wouldn’t worry too much about Justine. First of all, Justine has pipes like Linda Hamilton and second of all, she can hold her own talking smack up and down the Jersey Shore.

Hong Wu met up with several alumni friends during a recent trip to Hong Kong: Larry Ma ’99, Joey Wat, Frances Cheung ’99, Vivian Wang ’99.

Tom Beach started a new job last June at a venture capital firm called Parker Price Venture Capital in San Francisco.

Becca Bloomfield should be freezing her butt off in Minnesota (she moved there from Portland in August). However, lucky gal that she is, she managed to bring a down comforter with her that she got on her third day in Portland. Something tells me Becca is going to be just fine this winter…

Class of 2000 alumni helping out in Saint Paul, Minn., at Chocolat Celeste, a premium chocolate truffles start-up. L to R: Jeff Patton, Catherine Cox, Jody Johannessen, Camie Costa, Peter Kjome and Becca Bloomfield.

Ari Sherwood and his family moved from Chicago to Villanova, Pa., last July. They bought their first house, and after a six-month job search following a layoff from Sapient, Ari took a position as director of eBusiness for the R&D division of GlaxoSmithKline pharmaceuticals. Michal has taken an assistant professor position at Penn. The whole family, including daughter Maya, are settling in nicely!

While I get older and more un-hip, Chris Massey is somehow getting younger and hipper — which is hard to do since Chris was categorically the hippest guy at Kellogg (sorry Elarth). Chris is working for Neutrogena in L.A., fighting the good fight against pubescent pitfalls like chocolate, french fries, bad hygiene and raging hormones. He valiantly battles for market share everyday with the likes of Clean & Clear, Clearasil, Oxy, and Stridex. Because Chris spends his days poring over Teen Beat magazine in order to better understand his target consumer, I thought he’d feel more comfortable if we report his update like a Teen Beat bio: Name: Chris Massey. Height: Taller than you. Sign: Gemini (I made that up). Favorite vegetable: Rutabaga (as far as you know). Advice from Chris if you get a bad haircut: “I recently got a super short haircut that I am determined to grow into, without getting upset.” Chris on boy-bands: “I went to the ‘NSync concert in L.A. a few weeks ago, which I loved, and which pretty much made my 2001...” Chris on proximity to greatness: “…That is, until I attended the Teen Choice Awards, where I rubbed shoulders with Mandy Moore, ‘NSync (again), Britney Spears, Sandra Bullock, Sysqo, Destiny’s Child, Ben Affleck, and Reese Witherspoon. OK fine, so they were on stage, and I wasn’t, but I had great seats.”

Glen Hastings told me that for the past five months he has been “in transition,” which is the currently vogue term for being between jobs after being laid off, pink-slipped, downsized, restructured, etc. So, in between searching for a new career (he says he is still not sure what color his parachute is, or if he even has one (don’t worry, Glen, no one knows), he has taken the time to watch lots of movies (he says Mulholland Drive is just weird...), catch up with old friends, and spend some quality time with his lovely wife Janel (favorite activity: playing with their two dogs!). Glen told me that he wishes everyone well, and for to his fellow classmates in transition, he wishes you the best of luck!

Andres Franco has finally settled down “legally” in Spain, after convincing the Spanish government that he wasn’t a national menace. Andres hotly denies any insinuation that he “breaks” his opponents on the soccer field and says the photos must have been doctored. Although he was granted a working visa, he will be banned from any soccer field in Spain... (The Kellogg Alumni team, however, encourages “breaking” opponents on the soccer field so you can be sure that Andres will be there for the tournament in Austin this year).

Also, Andres is pretty psyched that Oscar Rodriguez is back in Madrid after a stint in Miami, because now they can show off Madrid’s nightlife to the slew of visitors that have come though. Among other visitor, Karina Rufino was seen arguing with Spanish customs officials, claiming that just because she was using a forklift to cart around 27 cases of Spanish wine, they were really for personal use. Andres suspects that Karina is trying to open a winery in the U.K. but he didn’t want to rat her out. Carolina Castillo has been giving dancing lesson to the Spanish crowd and Manthos Kallios has been actively working in the integration of western and eastern cultures using his dancing skills — Madrid is still trying to recover. Christoph Roettele found he was a huge fan of “Jamon Serrano” when he was in Spain.

Finally, Ashmita Goswami and Katy Nishida ’99 managed to tear up the city in just two days and will long be remember in the coolest club in the Madrid!

Phil Furse is going to kill me. He and Todd Schwartzrock made a fabulous video “Yearbook” and then developed a pyramid scheme to distribute it to the whole class. Let me just say that I have blatantly blown off my responsibilities as a tier one distributor. So, although it is not likely that I am going to be rounding up a second VCR and some packing supplies any time soon, I am going to suggest that if you are interested in procuring a copy of the tape you can send Phil a check for $20 and I am sure he would be happy to send you the tape.

Ryan Matthew Short was born Dec. 28 to Jen and Tom Short. Both Ryan and Jen are doing great. Tom wanted me to make some corny jokes about Ryan being born JIT for the tax deduction and the Time Value of Money, but b-school jokes are way in-arrears. Tom also told me that he was going to take advantage of the Family Leave Act, but since Honeywell only offers fathers unpaid time-off, he is just going to take some paid naps under his desk (a la George Costanza). I have a feeling that our favorite Navy Seal gets more done while napping than most of us get done all day.

Mariana and Felipe Venturo '00 with daughter Alexia born in December.

Julia and Dave Works had a son, Matthew on Dec. 13.

Keri and Charlie Michaelis had a baby — OK let’s be honest — a linebacker really, on Oct. 3. Their son, Foster, weighed in at a staggering 11 lbs., 10 oz. In my opinion, Keri should qualify for, at the least, a Nobel Prize for pulling that off. Mom, Dad, and baby are doing great!

	Keri and Charlie Michaelis '00 gave birth to their son Foster (a.k.a. "Baby Elvis") in October.

In contrast to all of the hoopla and fanfare that surrounded the exit of Dean Jacobs, many of you may not know that Dean Wilson is retiring this year. I would just like to publicly thank the man who in so many ways embodies what is extraordinary about the Kellogg culture . He is a man of incredible warmth and spirit — a man who made you excited to be a part of something so amazing. He was a Dean of Students who was a dean of the students. To me, he will always be the heart of Kellogg.