EMP-63

Maureen Floeter married John Calabrese on Jan. 26. The wedding was beautiful and in attendance were Ellen Siebenborn Forsyth and husband Matt, Mikenzie Steffens and husband Deniz, Kim Jude and husbandCraig, Ann-Marie Peluso, Dan Skinner and James Park. During the reception, "Ring of Fire" was requested, played, belted and likely frightened every non-Kellogg attendee. Congratulations to the new couple who actually debated returning from their honeymoon to go to the Super Bowl party. After returning from a week in Jamaica, John and Maureen are now relying on their best negotiation skills to combine the contents of their respective households in a 900-square-foot Chicago apartment. A strategy summit will soon be held for the last few inches of closet space. John is an attorney, but Maureen knows about BATNA and WATNA.

Peter Granat and wife Marta are pleased to announce the birth of Gordon Theodore Granat on Oct. 11. Gordon was born at the Prentice Women's Hospital in downtown Chicago.

Super Bowl weekend Reunion took place again, marking our fourth official reunion in two years. In attendance were Chris Brogan, Paul Del Gallo, Jason Childers, Rusell Cravey and his new bride Rhonda, Bill Dirkes and wife Maryfran, Kim Jude, David Seemater, Dan Skinner, Anand Subramanian, Charles Thompson and Marc Womack. Friday night was at Ni9e a restaurant, the Chicago branch of which is famous in EMP-63 history. Saturday turned out solid heat with golf all day, dinner at Nick and Sam's steak house and drinks at the Cactus Bar. Ask any attendee about the elevator. Sunday golf took place spontaneously as Charles finally broke 75 on the front nine on Saturday, making reservations for the next day. Maryfran, praying for her husband at church, did not improve Bill's Sunday game, but it never hurts. Sunday's Superbowl festivities were at the Womack's, with an amazingly good time. As we all pointed out to Paul, the Patriots lost. This culminated in a classy move from Tim Mahoney, who put his young daughter on the phone to explain "Mr. Del Gallo, the Giants won, the Giants won."

Several EMP-63 grads traveled to New York recently. Fromleft, Abdo Abdo, Geetha Subramanian, Ronnie Razmi, Anand Subramanian, JamesPark, Beth Eckenrode and Ann-Marie Peluso.
Russell Cravey EMP-63 and his wife, Rhonda, David Seemater,Jason Childers, Kim Jude, Dan Skinner, Chris Brogan, Paul Del Gallo, allEMP-63; Maryfran EMP-63 and Bill Dirkes, Marc Womack EMP-63, Kim and CharlesThompson EMP-63 and Anand Subramanian EMP-63.
Paul Del Gallo EMP-63, Maryfran EMP-63 and Bill Dirkes, andMarc Womack EMP-63 at Super Bowl Reunion
At the Super Bowl Reunion, Maryfran Dirkes EMP-63, BillDirkes, Marc Womack EMP-63, Charles Thompson EMP-63, Russell Cravey EMP-63 andwife Rhonda, David Seemater EMP-63, Jason Childers EMP-63 and Kim Jude
Paul Del Gallo, Charles Thompson, Clem Johnson and AnandSubramanian, all EMP-63, on the course in Kiawa
Maureen Floeter EMP-63 and husband, John
Peter Granat EMP-63 and Gordon watching the Red Sox game
Mikenzie Steffens,Ann-Marie Peluso and Kim Jude, all EMP-63, in Washington, D.C.
EMP-63's Kim Thompson, Charles Thompson and AnandSubramanian at the Super Bowl Reunion
Marc Womack and Alexander "Sasha" Vaisblat, both EMP-63, inRussia

Chris "I set up the Super Bowl, but I can't seem to go" Brogan had another car event. After a night of revelry he embarked on a game of golf he loved so much, that he "lost" his car key and went around the course twice more in his cart looking for it, while therest of us watched the game at Womack's. As we all ate fajitas and cheered our team, Chris finished the second lap with word from the clubhouse: "Oh, it's a Volvo key? Yeah we found one of those about three hours ago."

Beth Eckenrode called, and everyone answered. In New York City Nov. 16-18 with husband Tim, she figured out that Russell Cravey and the lovely Rhonda would be there as well. So she immediately rallied up Paul Futrell, Ronnie Razmi, Ann Marie Peluso, Anand Subramanian and wife Geetha, and Abdo Abdo for dinner, drinks and shopping. Word back from the folks is that "drinks should not precede shopping." Many children were confused by their special holiday gifts of toys, clothes, wine decanters and martini mixing sets.

Charles Thompson and wife Kim, Clem Johnson and wife Catherine, Anand Subramanian and wife Geetha, and Paul Del Gallo and wife Heather held their annual Columbus Day golf outing, this time on Veteran's Day weekend. The weekend was spent in Kiawa Island, S.C., with an inordinate amount of golf. Anand lost the "I bet we see an alligator contest" when he saw the biggest honking sea bass eating one in the Carolina sun.

EMP-63 Women's Weekend took off again this year, and this time the location was D.C. In attendance were Kim Jude, Mikenzie Steffens, Ann-Marie Peluso, Ellen Siebendorn Forsyth and Beth Eckenrode. Joining the fun for dinner the first night were Kevin O'Shaughnessey and Brian Tilley. Shopping was highlighted with shopping, and then an occasional dinner was thrown in. We are told that the ladies went shopping too.

Beth Eckenrode became the chief strategy officer for the HJ Heinz Company on Oct. 1. Of course the company owns a plethora of food products and dozens of top brands; however, we will be paying attention to none of that. We envision the job as follows: Monday, verify that the whole ketchup-on-a-ledge-to-drip-on-the-hot-dog trick from the commercials really does work. Tuesday, align bottle in refrigerator in classy fashion to recommend to customers where the ketchup will look best in the door. Wednesday, strategize whether Matt LeBlanc, for nostalgia's sake, will do the commercial again for a cut rate. Thursday, try to get "anticipation" to rhyme with "Beth completely rocks" for new commercial idea. Friday, pitch "Mamma Bear's favorite recipes" to boss. Spend weekend recovering from prior week's learning experiences.

Alfonso Cantalapiedra is now vice president of acquisitions for Latin America for Career Education Corporation. The company is based in Chicago, but he will be based in Miami while starting up the Latin America effort. It is a job that is ideally suited for him in terms of function and region. This culminates a long job search for Canta, as he set his sights on "educational institutions working in acquisitions for Latin American, with only staff with short haircuts who can belt out Journey songs on request." A niche if there ever was one.

Polo Quintano has joined Barclays as the business performance head for Western Europe and global retail. In his new role he has moved to London, where his strong British accent is of great advantage. Polo says he enjoys living somewhere that plays football better, has better food and nicer weather then his native Chile. Yeah, you don't send an update for a while, you get a tough time in Kellogg World.

Rosemary McGuillicutty has entered the world of investments with the Rosemary McGuillicutty's specialized hedges and hot dish. Based on prior investment approaches, Rosemary has learned that she has a special skill set in the investment community. Those who remember her "restaurant with two tables, three chairs, and no reservations" know she has a special eye for business plans. RMSHAHD's approach involves looking at investments she thinks are great, and immediately shorting them; using debt, financial engineering and every idea she learned in the finance classes. She augments this with a whole bunch of ideas nobody would ever teach in a finance class, anywhere. This includes going long on companies with logos in her favorite color, and those that have financial statements where the CEO looks very serious. She will then prepares her famous hot dish, eat it with her husband Dima, and roll in the dough. To be near the action, she is moving to New York. Ronnie has told her his spare room is taken. She could not afford to attend Super Bowl this year, but, as you can imagine, was rooting for the Giants. Rosemary professes the better business capabilities as the other Giants fans from Kellogg, which we will not refute.

Tim Mahoney has been appointed Marsh Inc.'s head of the enhanced global risk management group. This is a wide-scoping appointment covering Marsh's premier product around the globe. It covers their largest customers and involves the industry practices group as well. This is a great disappointment to several of us who were rooting for Tim to be assigned extremely small customers. We envisioned this job driving around in his car throughout the hinterland, stopping into burger joints and laundromats and saying, "Hey, let me talk to you about insurance." Nonetheless this is a phenomenal position and Tim is looking forward to working with key clients in this crucial role.

In October Jason Childers joined SITA Corp, a midsize technology system integrator, as the platform business development director, Central Region. In this new role, Jason has day-to-day business development and sales accountability for customers in the Midwest and Southwest. SITA is closely aligned with SAP, the leading enterprise software maker, and SITA works with SAP customers and prospects to first position SAP software as a solution to real business issues, and then to position SITA as the most experienced integrator in key domains. Jason's primary focus has been working with CIOs and their business counterparts to unlock the value trapped in their organizations due to poor governance of critical business data about customers, vendors, products, and other domains. Jason will also head the strategy development work for SITA, creating messages that will resonate with potential customers, and identifying the next growth area to be attacked. Jason's original idea, calling up competitors and yelling "Attack" has been sidelined for a more formal plan.

Paul Del Gallo, Peter Granat and Kim Jude caught up for drinks at Sullivan's in October. Nikolaj Sjovist pulled a Nikolaj and called at the last minute with regrets. Clem Johnson pulled a Nikolaj, which surprised everyone, even Nikolaj, as he felt he had brand ownership. There was supposed to be dinner, but nobody wanted to be bogged down. A great time was had all around, we were told by the staff as we left. Seiji Shinozaki and Brian Beeler have taken up reliving the bar crawls in Evanston now that Brian lives in the area. They are still studying as much as they did when they were in classes.

In October Kim Jude, Clem Johnson, Rafiq Mohammadi, Sujit Bakre, Marueen Floeter and her then beau John (now upgraded to husband John), Seiji Shinozaki, Nikolaj Sjoqvist, Safak Guven and some extra friends got together for dinner and drinks. The actual write up we received said "many drinks, good time had by all." With this crowd that could have simply been written "it was night time."

Hari Vallurupalli, Roger Gregory and Paul Del Gallo attended the Oct.17 Real Estate Conference at Kellogg, which was right as the subprime meltdown really got going. This of course lead to a great set of speakers, as nobody was too busy doing deals. A trip to Nevin's followed, with life-affirming "I'll work on your deal" speeches given. They were originally disappointed, and then relieved, that nobody at Nevin's remembered them.

Maureen Floeter and her then fiancé John visited Ellen Siebenborn Forsyth and her husband Matt in Minneapolis. Word that the men were bored with a two-hour exchange on the importance of brands and marketing are greatly exaggerated; in reality they just ignored the conversation.

Hari Vallurupalli is now the joint head of the CEO CLUBS INDIA. Hari has been a longstanding member of the U.S. operation of the CEO club, and is splitting the country (Hari has the south). This role will give Hari and opportunity to grow his already dominant network and further spread the club to this region. We would like to point out this is really uncalled for; once again, some guy from Texas thinks he has the right to roll out a process in India.

Anand Subramanian is now leading strategy and marketing initiatives in the prime brokerage business for Morgan Stanley. This new role includes identification and evaluation of growth strategies through new business model, product and market opportunities. This is a critical role, which we now understand does not involve brokering for people who Anand calls prime. Rosemary will not be a client. Anand is happy to be working in such a thrilling role, and when contacting former professors for tips was told "I don't remember you, my classes were on Friday afternoon."

Marc Womack visited Sasha Vaisblat in Moscow late last year. This involved a private concert, a tour of Red Square and the Kremlin and a dinner with a comedy routine in Russian. Marc only laughed when the comedian yelled at him. Next was a tour of St. Peter's church and the National Art Gallery. The next day involved visits to several churches and the Evander Holyfield vs. Sultan Ibragimov heavyweight title fight. Marc tried to get in the ring, as vodka makes you brave. On the last day they went to the circus and "after that things get a little fuzzy." This makes Sasha the favorite visiting point for EMP-63 grads and our best host. Nobody is buying the "Marc went to church and culture spots" bit either.

Andrew Gillen sends word that he has only one update. He has been working seven days a week, 12-hour days to prepare for his company's big push to get a government contract they renew every 10 years. He anticipates falling right back into old habits immediately afterwards and has been dusting off the special suit to get ready. The bear is back in town.

Brian Beeler came to Boston, got in touch with Paul, and proceeded to blow him off every single day he was here. On the other hand James Park visited Paul Del Gallo for a great night out with dinner and drinks. James is now better then Brian. Actually, James has always been better then Brian.

Safak Guven served as a consultant to the Ministry of Health in Turkey to educate surveyors and build the infrastructure for hospital quality from Jan. 14 to Feb. 10. His role was to help them as how to give parties Kellogg style. On a second note, Kellogg GIM trip this year (March 10-20) will include Istanbul/Dubai and Safak is supporting/advising the trip to make sure it meets EMP-63 standards.