There is lots of activity to report from EMP-64. First, we'll start with a quick recap of career changes. Tom Ellis writes: "After 9.5 amazing years working at Sapient, I have decided to join The Nielsen Company, a marketing research, media and information company. The opportunity will be a bit of a change from what I am doing at Sapient as, in this newly created Nielsen position, I will be working with a core team to manage and integrate a set of Nielsen Media Research products for a number of Nielsen's clients. While I have always enjoyed being a part of Sapient, this unique opportunity at Nielsen will challenge me in new ways." Tom joins Angela Talton, who recently made the move to The Nielson Company in the role of senior vice president, global call center operations.

Kevin Peters has news of a new job and a move. He writes: "I was offered the executive vice president of supply chain position at Office Depot, and we moved to Florida. My new responsibilities include our 32 distribution and cross dock facilities across North America, transportation, inventory management and network design. I'm excited about the new opportunity as are our kids in college, who now have a great spring break destination. Here's hoping that offer extends to (chilly) EMP-64 classmates living in Chicago this winter."

Claudio Valera has recently accepted a new position within Lawson Software as the global services director for their newly formed Strategic Human Capital Management (SHCM) business unit. Claudio generously feels the group name (and acronym) should be quite explanatory to EMP-64, forgetting his need to translate roughly 10 tech acronyms he bandied about during our competing in a networked economy class.

In other tech career updates, Cristina Sierra is finally admitting to outsiders she started a new job with Adobe Systems in late November. After spending two years at Kellogg visualizing life on the outside, she decided to remain in the technology industry but to move to a more consumer-oriented (read: cooler) type of technology. She is part of the channel operations strategy team and continues to enjoy the benefits of working remotely although her neighbors in Texas question whether this can be a "real" job.

In a surprising turn of events Jason Chen reports that he has left GE and in January started a new career with Cardinal Health as its SVP in charge of global sourcing. Jason will be relocating from Beijing to Shanghai for this new job. If any classmates are traveling to Shanghai, please know Jason is happy to be your host. Jason can be reached at Jason.Chen@CardinalHealth.com.

In baby news, Dave Mohr and wife Courtney report the birth of their second son, Oliver Mohr, in December. Congratulations!

In relocation news, Russ Walker and wife Anna have moved to the Chicago area (Deerfield). Russ is teaching at Kellogg (yes, he was clearly smarter than most of us, with the exception of David Summers) and is leading the EMP GIM trip to Turkey and Dubai. He looks forward to seeing more of our classmates more often.

There have been a few EMP-64 gatherings. On Nov. 2, classmates gathered for the first official reunion, enjoying an evening of wine and high-end Middle Eastern cuisine at Tizzi Melloul in Chicago. The wary but ultimately happy group included: Sandeep Gupta, John Potter, Eddie Kubo, Scott Stevens, Mitch Myers, John Vanderpool, David Summers, Davinder Singh, Joel Warren, Angela Talton, Russ Walker, Wilson Aihara, Jeffery Adik, Mark Rusiewski, Jonatan Laiter, Eric Stone, Ted Winslow, Michael Phillips, Tom Ellis, Dave Mohr and Carolyn Amato. A festive time was had by all and to prove it we can't show any picture that aren't severely blurring despite the best efforts of Photoshop (hey, I write the newsletter, I get to make the product plugs).

In other gatherings, Travis Monke writes that a subset of Group H met for dinner in November in Chicago and had an excellent gathering. Attendees included Mark Rusiewski, Jonatan Laiter and Travis himself. He also met with the recently relocated and promoted Jason Chen in Shanghai for dinner in January. Travis hereby wins the EMP-64 social butterfly award for February 2008.

Cristina Sierra and Caroline Amato had a mini reunion in Southlake, Texas, in January. Caroline was pleasantly surprised to learn that good Thai food can be found in Texas, albeit at a price. Thanks all, and as always, keep us posted.