1993 — Full-Time

For those of you who have not heard the sad news, Jim Owens passed away peacefully at his home in Edina, Minn., on Jan. 4, 2008, after a 10-year battle with cancer. Jim married Barbara Sussex, the love of his life on Aug. 29, 1998, and they were blessed with the birth of son Max in 1999. Since 1994, Jim worked at Owens Companies, Inc., an engineering and contracting firm founded by his late father in 1957. There he was vice president, head of the automation division and director of marketing. Jim also was an accomplished athlete. And in spite of ongoing treatments to combat the progression of an inoperable brain tumor discovered in 1998, Jim continued to run, swim, cycle and participate in endurance events like the American Birkebeiner. Since 2002, Jim was involved in the Lance Armstrong Foundation as a fundraiser, advocate and spokesperson as well as a lobbyist at the state capitol and in Congress. He was selected to be a member of the 2004 Bristol-Meyers Squibb Tour of Hope Team, completing a nine-day 24/7 cross-country trek from L.A. to D.C., with Lance Armstrong and 19 other cyclists to spread the word of the importance of clinical trials and support cancer survivorship. He will be missed by us all.

	Christian Darquier '93 (center) and wife Sylvia are joined at their wedding by Marcelo Leite, Bruno Bolzan, and Paul Lalvani, all '93. Christian notes, "Not in the picture but present at the event was Jaime Requeijo '93."
	Heather Forsythe '93 playing with monkeys in Honduras
	Hans Lidforss '93 and daughter Nicole at Christmastime
	Karl Safft '93 with Dean Ed Wilson in Switzerland in February

With happier news, Christian Darquier married Sylvie in September and they celebrated their wedding on a boat on the Seine River with friends and family. This was a great excuse to gather some good Kellogg friends who flew in from all over the world for the occasion, including Marcelo Leite from Brazil, Paul Lalvani from India, Bruno Bolzan from New York and Jaime Requeijo from Spain.

Eric Dingman also is newly married. He exchanged vows with Kay Hall on Nov. 1 in Toronto in front of family and friends, including Matthew Shapiro. Eric also has good news to share on the work front. In December, he was appointed worldwide president of EMI & Virgin Classics, based jointly out of London and Paris (though Eric still lives in Everberg, Belgium). Prior to taking on this new role, Eric was an executive at the international marketing and advertising group of WPP.

Kris (Tassone) Webster had been living in Switzerland for the last three years with her husband Scott and their daughters Jameson (3 1/2) and Rylan (1) before moving back to the Boston area. Kris was working at an Internet company in the San Francisco Bay Area up until the birth of their first daughter. Right after Jameson was born, Scott received an offer to work for Nestlé's corporate headquarters in Vevey, Switzerland, where they relocated. Kris had been a stay-at-home mom since then and their second daughter was born in Switzerland. While Kris misses some good friends, fresh croissants and Swiss chocolate, she is very happy to be back in the States. She writes: "While there were wonderful things about living overseas, we have happily relocated back to the United States. Even though I learned enough French to get by, life seems so much easier in English!"

Jeff Walsh and Connie Gute Walsh '94 are happily settled in Wellesley, Mass. Just over a year ago, they had their third and final baby (a third girl) to join their 7- and 9-year-olds. After working five years at his last biotech firm, Jeff changed jobs, taking a position at an exciting biotech start-up in Cambridge, Mass., called Taligen Therapeutics. I suppose by now Jeff falls into the category of a serial entrepreneur, as this is his fourth start-up since Kellogg. He comments, "I couldn't imagine working in any other environment."

Connie continues to enjoy her role at Staples, where she heads up marketing for Staples' own branded products group. Jeff randomly ran into Dave Josephs in San Francisco at the JP Morgan Healthcare meeting earlier this year (Dave works for JP Morgan). He writes, "It was great to see him and reminisce a bit. He looks great — exactly the same."

The past year has been a good one for Geoffrey Hyatt. Contact Networks, the enterprise social networking company he started in 2001, was acquired by Thomson Reuters in November 2007. Geoffrey writes: "In hindsight, the timing makes me feel like genius, but it was just extremely lucky. We only accepted the offer because it was too attractive to ignore, and TR is a quality organization." He also took the offer so he could retire from the start-up pace and enjoy being a parent, as son Lincoln was born in February 2008. He comments, "To everyone who raised a child while going to Kellogg full-time, I finally understand what a feat that is and why you were always so efficient in study groups!"

Jim Maffezzoli lives in New York with his wife Joyce and their four children. Jim is working at Pfizer Inc. as the senior director of marketing for Viagra, Detrol and a new product that launches this spring.

Brian Vogel left Wells Fargo in Santa Rosa, Calif., where he spent the past 10 years as an investment manager for wealthy clients. He is currently pondering his next move and is considering joining a boutique investment management firm.

Brett Bonthron has left Microsoft and joined the boutique strategy firm TCG Advisors as a partner. TCG was founded by Geoffrey Moore EMP-2 and focuses solely on technology clients.

John F. Kwant was promoted to vice president of government affairs for Ford Motor Co.'s Asia-Pacific and Africa Group. He and the family will be based in Shanghai. He writes, "While it will be hard to leave Ann Arbor and the yearly KSM reunions we've had there during football season with the Sheputis, Wehners, Josephs, Lewises and Strozinskys, we welcome them and any other KSM alumni visiting Shanghai over the next few years."

Diane (Malecki) Luxhoj survived a reorganization of the marketing group at Kimberly Clark late last year. She also updates that she and her family spent two weeks in Copenhagen, Denmark, over Christmas and New Year's since her husband Erik's father is from Denmark. The vacation was full of visits with many uncles, aunts and cousins. She writes, "It is a beautiful (and clean) country."

Yumiko Sato is still working in the healthcare industry. Recently she has been charged with starting a nursing home for seniors. She writes: "Being with seniors makes me feel that everybody, rich or poor, promoted or not, is the same at the end of the life. I am lucky to be able to touch someone's end of life."

Bianca Lacson has been married for eight years to Ramon Lacson from University of Notre Dame. They have two girls, Celine (7) and Camille (5). Bianca works for the family business, which is a chain of supermarkets in the Philippines, called South Supermarket. She writes: "As I write, I'm in Bicol, a province south of Luzon, famous for the Mayon Volcano, which has a perfect cone and whale shark interaction. I just swam with three whale sharks yesterday. I was so close I could've touched them and even made eye contact with them."

John Morris is in banking and says "not much is up besides trying to stay on the job." John is halfway through his CPA exams and still doing walking tours for the Chicago Architecture Foundation. John would love to see folks on the "Lights! Camera! Architecture!" tours he'll be giving this summer.

Andy Whitman and his partners successfully raised and closed their new fund, specifically designed for helping emerging branded consumer products companies. Part of that help is assistance from experienced industry operators and investors coupled with growth capital. 2x Consumer Products Growth Partners generally invests $1 million to $5 million per company and is exclusively focused on emerging food, beverage, personal care, home care and pet care companies — particularly in the organic/natural, specialty/gourmet and ethnic products sectors. Andy reports: "While some industries and sectors will struggle in this environment, highly differentiated consumer products like the eco-friendly and flushable diapers from gDiapers we've invested in have done and will continue to do well. After all, babies still do their business even when the broader business environment is more challenged."

Mark Jowell and his son Jonah visited Roman Pongracz and his family in Vienna. Mark could only stay for a couple days, but they were filled with fun activities like ice skating on the biggest natural ice skating park in Europe. "Can you imagine skating from Austria to Hungary, over several kilometers?" he shares.

Mark also said they visited museums, explored a local food market, celebrated Roman's daughter's 11th birthday, went to the former Royal Palace, and shared their experiences of the last few years. They also celebrated the successful launch of Pongrácz Champagne in South Africa. "Finally a cross-national-cultural Kellogg project that really paid off — Pongrácz is now market leader in South Africa!" Anyone visiting South Africa is encouraged to give it a try. If you want to know more about Mark's entrepreneurial focus, visit logicjunction.com. If you want to visit Roman in Vienna, his door is open!

Yves Arrouet sent an update for the first time since leaving Kellogg and writes, "I feel a bit like writing my memoirs, always an exercise full of hubris." After leaving school, Yves joined GE Capital in lovely London and later in Buenos Aires, "where quality of life is second to none." He headed back to Paris and in 2000, he took a long sabbatical. A couple of years later, Yves "rejoined the game" with Societe Generale and today, he heads one of the firm's businesses in Bulgaria. On the personal front, he shares, "bankers say that people make three big decisions in their life: to marry, to have children and to buy a house. I have done none of that yet, still total freedom." But never say never .... Yves also reports that he keeps in touch on a regular basis with Dr. Harald Fett and Georg Schloendorff and was on the phone with Luc Paillard, who is doing well in London.

Ingrid Gentry also wrote in for the first time. After Kellogg she worked for a few years in investment banking but quickly found her way to Louisville, Ky., to work in corporate development at Brown-Forman Corporation. You may know BF from its brands, which include Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey, Southern Comfort, Finlandia Vodka and Fetzer Wines, among others. Ingrid worked in Louisville for nine years, eventually leading the corporate development function and having "a lot of fun along the way." During this time she married a lovely and fun man, Lewis Gentry, and they have three wonderful children: Lily (10), Cole (7) and Gray (3). Two years ago, the family moved to Sydney, Australia, so she could take a job as finance director for Asia Pacific. They've had a blast in Sydney but their sweet life in Australia is coming to an early end. In April, they're moving to Prague, Czech Republic, so Ingrid can take a job as managing director for Central Europe. Ingrid reports, "It is exciting on a professional level since it is my first non-finance job and I'm really looking forward to the challenge."

After working a year and a half at the Fundación Consejo España-Estados Unidos, Leticia Ponce is helping her father develop two large real estate projects in Merida, Yucatan. She also is a dedicated mom to son Diego (10) and daughters Sofía (9) and Clara (3). They still live in Madrid, but continue to visit Mexico during summer vacations so the children can be proud of both their heritages. Ghia Griarte and her daughter Natalie visited earlier this year and everyone had a great time visiting favorite spots in Madrid.

Last year, Bill Morin and Virginie Morin '94 marked 10 years of living in France, where they are dedicated to Global Hope's development projects. This year, Bill returned from a very encouraging trip with the organization's president to visit staff teams in Indonesia and Hong Kong. In Indonesia, they set up a new water tank to serve families living in a slum area where they either had to walk an hour to get water or drank from the dirty stream running between their homes. If you'd like to learn more, visit ghni.org.

Melissa Edison Barnes writes: "Five other Kellogg alumni and I are part of the founding board of the Denver Venture School, a new Denver public high school focusing on entrepreneurship and college prep in Denver. The Denver Venture School is training and educating the entrepreneurs of tomorrow, helping to create resilient problem solvers and creative thinkers at the high school level. These students will be that much more ready to face the challenges of today and tomorrow than students from traditional high school.

"DVS has been open since August with a ninth-grade class of 80 students — 90 percent are on the free lunch program and approximately 90 percent are minorities. Each year the school will add a ninth-grade class and will be fully enrolled at the start of the fourth year in 2011. DVS is leveraging a project based on an academic curriculum that allows for relevant and integrated teaching of core academic subjects. The top priority of the school is to send every student to a four-year college. The college focus is uniquely paired with entrepreneurship and leadership coursework, which will culminate in the junior and senior years with each student starting and running their own businesses. The philosophy behind this entrepreneurship focus is that the skills of an entrepreneur — tenacity, creativity, ability to learn from failure and management — are skills that will ensure success at any level and in any career.

 "Denver Public Schools are struggling with a more than 50 percent dropout rate, and only 9 percent of incoming high school freshman graduate from a four-year college. Denver is working toward education reform and it is smaller, focused schools, like DVS, that are leading the way. We are education entrepreneurs."

So, what is Heather Forsythe up to? Quite a bit of travel — some for work, some for pleasure (well, I always try to slip a bit of fun into any travel I do). In November, I was in Shanghai and Moscow for some consumer focus groups. In December, I took a Western Caribbean cruise with my family during the Christmas week: playing with monkeys in Honduras, rafting in Belize, exploring Tulum in Mexico and relaxing in the Bahamas. I also spent a week in Hong Kong for some APAC planning meetings earlier this year, followed by a week in Mumbai to meet with a new vendor. I managed to squeeze in a long weekend in Beijing between the two sets of meetings and I finally had a chance to visit the Great Wall.

Please do keep the updates (and pictures!) coming…