1988

Words of advice perhaps will inspire some spring cleaning for you: Watch the size of your e-mail file (total amassed storage) on your PCs. I had one of those things called a crash, and lost a bunch of data. I bring this up because I had the alumni office send out a broadcast to y'all to let me know what's up with you, and many of you responded. You know where this is going. I hope those of you who sent me notes will re-send, or those who were unable to do so, can do so. I had them resend it on Feb. 25, and some of you replied immediately. Let's see if I can make the deadline. Some of your notes (the ones I printed out for airplane reading pre-computer-crash and anything sent post-crash) are included here. Cheers, everyone, and thanks for sharing your exciting news now that we've been out of school nearly 20 years!

It's February at the time of this writing, and I've got a new gig in Motorola's handset division's North American product operations, where I'm focused on supporting our efforts in retail and developing new channel partners. New challenges, great fun, great team, great management — all good. I will definitely miss my friends in China. What's fun is, I know already that I have opportunities to work with Scott Ableman and Susan Brazer. Scott is still heading up marketing at Inphonic (if you've bought or researched a phone online you've probably used them), and Susan has a new role as vice president of corporate development for Virgin Mobile USA.

Beth Dorian reports that son Luke just celebrated his seventh year of life here in the United States. She's enjoyed being a mom without question. She was with NCNB (now Bank of America) for 15 years, living at times in Charlotte, N.C., but took a job at Wachovia Bank in 2003. Since 2005, she's been running Wachovia's tax credit asset management group. She and Luke visited San Fran last summer, where they met up with Anne Feldhusen. Anne is another one like me, still with HP after all these years! Otherwise, her travels in New York City connect her with Barb Bernard, and when she's in Washington, D.C., she visits Joan Diggs Townsend (who is back from years in Brussels).

Brad Schneider and Julie Dann wrote that their son Adam became a bar mitzvah in April 2006, and younger son Daniel will become a bar mitzvah in February 2008. Julie's insurance company recently had a merger with Mesirow Financial, which provides services in investment management, insurance, investment banking, consulting and real estate. Julie is a senior managing director at Mesirow. Brad is the director of the strategic services group at Blackman Kallick and the director of the Blackman Kallick Family Business Center, which has him speaking around the county about strategic planning for family businesses. Coming soon to a conference-center stage near you!

Kevin Kotecki and wife Nancy Neuman have two boys (4 and 7), and he's in his second year as CEO of the Pabst Brewing Co. After commuting to San Antonio for nine months, Kevin says the headquarters is now in the Chicago area and life is more settled. Otherwise, Kevin's passions include karate, and the family is raising snakes. They own 16 of them — enough to make a movie.

Mary Politzer Pradier is based near Paris with husband Laurent and boys Paul, Jean and Thomas. She is currently the eServices worldwide program manager at Agilent Technologies. She sends fond wishes to the Kellogg crew and hopes 2007 brings good health to all of us and our loved ones.

Jay Fitzgerald lives in New York City with Ginny, his wife of 21 years. Son Clark is a freshman film student at USC, and daughter Shea is a junior in high school who just finished a semester abroad in Rome. Jay says he's in his third or fourth professional life since Kellogg, as president of an NYC-based home furnishings and design business known as Jonathan Adler. He invested in the business in 2004, and now he's trying to lead them through a growth strategy. The company runs eight stores across the country and is planning to add many more over the next few years. Ginny also works in the business as the director of stores. She is responsible for managing the far-flung retail business. You can also find Jay cycling and snowboarding. Regarding the former, Jay sponsors and manages a local bike racing team called Jonathan Adler Racing. The team has 15 riders and all are having great fun. Jay says he's past his prime and lives vicariously through the success of his teammates.

Steve Crea is living in Eagle, Idaho, with wife Dorothy. Daughter Lindy is preparing to graduate with an MBA from ESA in Barcelona, and son Shane graduated from the University of Washington in June 2005. To keep the nest from emptying out completely, Steve and Dorothy adopted two border collies, who are running Steve back into good physical shape. He's recently launched a wealth management and financial planning firm in Eagle (near Boise), a natural choice for him after extended stints at Merrill Lynch and Piper Jaffray. Idaho has abundant outdoor activities of all types; let Steve know if you need help in finding your way up yonder.

Nita Halim tells me that her kids are growing too fast. Tina (14) is in high school; Ian (13) will be there soon. Liza (12) isn't far behind. Nita stays in touch with Barb Bernard, Martha Post, Hilary Peck and Denise Sheehan. She lets us know that Joe Duncan's family just had a baby boy.

Dave Hirschler and wife Maura live in Westport, Conn., with son Matthew (6). Dave had been doing the brand management thing for the past 18 years until last year, when he made a big switch to the service side. He's a qualitative research guru for the Greenfield Consulting Group (a division of WPP's Millward Brown). He loves it. Dave connects with David Kieselstein, Gary Cohen, Jay Hussey, Alan Blumberg, Tammy Hathaway Smith, John McCarus and Joan Rosenberg Hendell. All seem to be doing great, we'll hear from them sometime.

Peter Stelian, wife Helene and twin girls Bianca and Indigo are enjoying life. Peter started a real estate investment management firm on Labor Day 2002 with another LaSalle Partners colleague. They manage three funds. One is focused on buying and building student housing all over the United States and the other two back local operating partners in acquiring/developing all property types throughout the nation. Last year he was invited by Dave Prokupek to join six other friends (including Bernard Markey and Matt Golub '89) to drive Baja race cars throughout the Baja peninsula in Mexico.

Peter and Jenny Boit are still raising four kids (two teen-agers) and building a house in Seattle. Peter just celebrated 15 years with Microsoft. Other than carefully launching Vista, their lives are filled with ski racing, soccer, football, baseball and tennis.

Derek Hasbrouk and wife Patty (Goodrich '89) live in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., the summer home of thoroughbred racing in New York State. Drew (11) and Zoe (6) keep them hopping. Derek coached Drew's hockey team this season and reports that it felt like a full-time job at times. After 18 years in the consulting business, Derek left PA Consulting Group to serve as the chief financial officer and treasurer of Vermont Electric Power Co. VELCO manages the high-voltage electric transmission system in Vermont and is rapidly building new infrastructure to improve power reliability in northwestern New England.

Ron Zhiss works at Fellowes (office products) in corporate marketing and has been there for a couple of years. At a search marketing conference in Chicago, he ran into Bruce Rhodes. Bruce is still with the Harvard Business Review. Ron and wife Carolyn have three sons — Daniel (17), Andrew (15) and Matthew (11) — and are doing the soccer games and orchestra-concert thing.

	Antonio Enrique Dominguez — with dad Tony '88 and grandpa — saddles up at the ripe old age of 10 months.

Tony Dominguez and family wanted to share the March 7, 2006 arrival of little Antonio Enrique.

Mara Salz Einstein just finished writing her second book, Brands of Faith: Marketing Religion in a Commercial Age, which will be published by Routledge this summer. She's a tenured associate professor of media studies at Queens College as well as an adjunct at Stern (New York University's business school) and contemplating rebuilding her consulting business. Lives in New York with her daughter (7).

After working for the last 15 years for the Latin American divisions of Motorola, Lucent Technologies and Microsoft, Bernardo Araya and a partner founded South Star Consulting Group Inc., a marketing and management consulting company based in Boca Raton, Fla. The company offers services in the areas of management and marketing consulting, international business development and assistance to startups in search of financing. He's continued traveling in Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Mexico and Puerto Rico on behalf of clients, and his company assists U.S. companies that wish to expand their operations into Latin America and vice versa. Business has been good so far, and Bernardo expects to offer more financial services in the near future. He's been traveling to Evanston to visit a stepson who is a freshman at Northwestern University. Bernardo lives with his wife, Andreina.

Gary Lewis just moved from New Jersey to sunny San Diego, where he's an advanced markets consultant and financial planning specialist for the Wealth Strategies Group, a MetLife office with offices throughout California. He specializes in income and estate tax strategies for the ultra-high-net-worth market and trains and manages the financial planning activities of some 70 planners.

Brad Wilson has been in a variety of sales and marketing positions in the computer technology and software industries. Lots of travel. He says he hopes to spend more time with his family following his May graduation from DePaul University's College of Law.

I stay in touch with Mike Wapner, who lives in Chicago with wife Lan and daughters Anna (4) and Julia (7). Mike's been active with his temple, has researched his family's immigration data, and has established or re-established contact with dozens of cousins, and developed an extensive narrative on his maternal grandmother's family life through the 20th century. Lan and Mike's combined families yield a tree containing more than 900 people, spanning eight generations.

Susan Ward Underwood sent a card at the holidays with her and Craig's three beautiful girls, who are keeping her incredibly busy. Yes, the normal rundown, multiplied by three: piano, tennis, gymnastics, baseball, soccer, basketball. Whoa. She even has to drive the family dog — Max, a therapy dog — to the hospital. At least he's not asking for piano lessons.

Dennis Sheehan caught me up on his girls: wife Mary, Claire (17), Katherine (15) and Erin (14). Raising three high school girls means great thrills and excitement, and a recent highlight for Dennis was having three dates at the school's father-daughter dance. The family is working hard to maintain enough functioning cars to keep everyone moving. Dennis joined SiRF Technology; they're a supplier of chips for GPS navigation devices. He's head of product management/marketing.

Fred Nelson and Debi also have a senior in high school, Erik, who's busy applying to college. Connor is in eighth grade and plays hockey for the New Jersey Penguins. Fred continues his consulting practice in health care and is taking breaks to fly-fish.

Tom and Diane MacDonald have four kids in school now, so life is more orderly. Tom went salmon fishing with Diane's cousins, and brought home 100 pounds of fish. He still runs Intel's server and storage components business. Diane's busy leading Brownie troops, helping at the girls' ballet school and volunteering at the grammar school.

Brent Koehler was on his way to Phoenix when a job opportunity he was pursuing ended up not being what it was purported to be. He put on the brakes, turned around and bought another house back in Shorewood, Minn., and has wasted no time in firing up his consulting practice again. These days, Brent is again fishing in the north lands. Michael is 13. Mathew is 9. Brent's wife, Becky, is surviving the roller coaster of cross-country moving.

Pat Ciriacks and Kelly are enjoying life in Wisconsin, with Kevin ready to graduate high school this year. Jenny is in eighth grade. Pat's unit of Creation Technologies — of which he is now the regional leader — is doing well. He's been coaching Jenny's volleyball team. On Jenny's 14th birthday, Pat was at the same hospital where she was born, getting his appendix removed.

Amy Wahlert Principe and Joe are watching Molly (15) and Nick (12) grow up fast. She works part time at her church and volunteers at church and school, chairing endowment committees, sitting on councils and running publicity.

Mark and Hanne Proudfoot update: Mark's business is expanding and has opened a branch in Belgium. Hanne's completing a degree in holistic health counseling. Kids — 3, 6, 9 and 12 — are growing.