It seems only fitting to follow up that difficult news with some happy news…
Carissa Ganelli had this update: On Feb.15, 2007, Andrew Buss and Carissa Ganelli welcomed son Jeremy. Jeremy joined big brother Aidan (6). Jeremy was only one month old when he met his parents' Kellogg classmates at a St. Patrick's Day party hosted by Ray and Marie-Louise Scanlon. In attendance were: Todd and Heather (Beatty) Raker, Jane Bieneman, Carrie Leonard, Steve and Jan Gilland. Suzy Ivelich got to meet the Buss Boys (and catch up with Carissa and Andrew) when she was in Old Greenwich, Conn., for a client's launch party. Suzie's firm, Ivelich Stone, created the brand strategy for the client.
Carissa is the vice president of customer experience at Webloyalty Inc. in Norwalk, Conn., and Andrew is a principal with Booz & Co. in New York.
An update from Bam (Barbara Wansbrough, now Toth): "Victoria ('Tori') was born on Nov. 9, 2007, so she's nearly 15 months old. We've been a bit tardy in getting the info into Kellogg World — sorry! She's a delight. We're lucky that she's been such an easy baby for the most part so far. These days, she's running around like the Energizer Bunny and into everything, including terrorizing our two cats!"
Our former professor Ramu Thiagarajan, who taught most of us the accounting that we know, is now heading a global portfolio for Deutsche Bank and lives in California.
From Christian Snider: "Hi Suzy, thanks a million for taking over the difficult task of keeping up with all of us. I promise we will not lock you into that same 13-year contract we handed Rick. Kudos to him for doing this for as long as he did. After almost four years at Microsoft, I left to join Infusion Development (infusion.com) two years ago as its COO and its 113th employee. It is a rapidly growing technology services firm that has over 220 people with offices in New York, Toronto, Boston, London and Dubai. We focus on end-user solutions development and build almost solely on leading-edge Microsoft technologies. I cannot even describe how much more fun it is to be in a small company.
"On the home front, things couldn't be better. The kids are growing like weeds. Annabel, who as an infant came on stage with us during graduation, is now a strong-willed teenager, rolling through eighth grade. Madeleine (12) is competing in gymnastics and Stefan (10) is on his way toward a career either in the NFL or as a professional X-Box player. The three are keeping Brianna and me very busy. We still live in Darien, Ill. Please send my regards to the class — especially the locals in Fairfield County, Conn. I have done a lousy job of keeping in touch."
Claire Celeste Carnes left Intel in January for healthcare. Big change but good, she reports.
Jeff Breininger passes along that he's still at Smith Barney, and despite the markets, he's doing fine. He has quite a handful of good Kellogg alums as clients and is always looking for more!
Liz Crystal is senior vice president of worldwide marketing for Revlon and Almay and has been in that role nearly two years. She lives and works in New York.
Jerry A. Klopfer was named partner in November to KPMG LLP, a U.S. audit, tax and advisory firm. Klopfer provides tax services to industrial manufacturing and insurance industry clients in the Chicago area. As the national practice leader for the firm's operational transfer pricing service line, he also helps clients develop internal capabilities to more effectively implement, monitor and document transfer pricing.
An update from the Harrison family: Carter Harrison was born on April 25, 2007, to Jennifer Ayre and Brent Harrison. Carter joins big sister Hanna (11) and brother Parker (10) in the Harrison household. Brent continues to run a Silicon Valley-based consultancy, SmokeJumper Strategy, and helps his wife's wine business, Savvy Cellar Wines (savvycellar.com).
Lucía Paiz sends an update and great family photo: "I'm doing ok, I have three kids: Daniel (12), Marcela (10) and Carina (7). The bad news is that Edwin and I divorced, so I'm back to being Lucía Paiz. I am working trying to start my own company investing in real estate, though it's still starting so it's me, myself and I — meanwhile, I'm helping my dad in some of his projects, helping farmers of cocoa in Guatemala and putting together Symposium of Cacao in December. It's pretty different stuff, after having worked for seven years as director in a regional bank and after eight years of working in my family's family office, principally in finance, shareholder stuff and accounting. But I like the change, I like that there's a lot to learn and new people to work with and that in the end, it helps people who are trying to get out of poverty by working hard."
After nearly four years in Tokyo, Alex Woodthorpe returned to Hong Kong about 18 months ago. Kerilee and Alex see a lot of Liz and Nick Palmer either on the tennis courts or dance floors of Hong Kong, and his visits to Bangkok on business have put him back in touch with David Fry, who is thriving there. More recently he's seen Wil Wilhelm on several occasions in Sydney who is pondering hard on whether to buy a boat or not. How can you not in Sydney?
Last, but certainly not least, he was delighted to be in touch with Todd and Christie Forest in Sydney and even succeeded to get Todd to run the Sydney marathon with him after his recent Iron Man feats. He mentions that Todd was a long way ahead of him!
Liz Wald writes: "Thanks for checking in. I'm in New York, where I've been for the past 10 years. I spent more than four years importing handmade products by African women but closed the import business earlier this year. I consulted before joining one of my companies in January."
Mark Lamps and family moved back from China after four years, and are now living north of Minneapolis. Anne and kids are fine — kids are now 12, 8 and 7, which is "pretty scary." He's still with Pentair, currently as general manager for McLean Cooling Technology.
Simon Rankin is managing director with Morgan Stanley in global capital markets and is proud to introduce (belatedly) his twin boys, Sebastian Edgar and Christopher John Rankin.
If you're looking for a cool restaurant in San Francisco, look up Bruce McDonald. He left Booz Allen San Francisco after three long years following our graduation and opened a restaurant in SF called Foreign Cinema (foreigncinema.com) with a couple of friends. Not exactly corporate America but he likes working for himself and the business is a nice combination of art and science with a lot of drama mixed in.
Mark Ball and family moved back from South Africa, where he was busy with his entrepreneurial venture of starting and running Emerging Sun, a consulting firm, specializing in African region. They've settled in the D.C. area.
Big update from Tracy Heilman, who was busy in 2006 and 2007. They say big things happen in threes, and that has certainly been the case for Tracy. Subimo — the company she started six and a half years earlier with three other colleagues — was acquired by WebMD at the end of 2006. She was thrilled to have grown the company to that point, especially given the conditions in the market when they started back in 2000. Tracy and her husband also had their second baby in February 2007. And, to top it all off, the family decided to move out of the city (to Wilmette, Ill.) — giving them a scant two to three weeks to unpack and settle in before the baby arrived! It has been crazy but all very good. Tracy said leaving the city was a bit bittersweet, as they had been there for almost 20 years (11 years in their place in Chicago, so you can only imagine the amount and range of stuff they had accumulated). But they are glad that Wilmette is just a short commute into the city, as they still have many good friends there.
From Carla Cooper: "By the numbers ... two kids, two jobs (one for me, one for my husband), two cars, zero pets and two plants. It's busy! The plants are barely alive but the children are doing fine. Erica (5) and Colin (8) are growing up. My son attends the elementary school that I went to, so that has gotten me involved in fundraising, among other things. I work at the same place I started work at following graduation, Robert W. Baird. I am a software research analyst and portfolio manager within our asset management group. It's an interesting time to be named a portfolio manager but fund performance was good on a relative basis in the third quarter so I'll just keep my fingers crossed. We also moved to my hometown of San Francisco in 2001 after six years in Milwaukee. Suzie Ivelich works within a couple of blocks of my office, and down a few blocks more is Philip Yau (and I'm sure more of our class that I don't know about)."
Winston Zacharia is in New York with Detica's banking group, a leading information intelligence company that does mainly defense work. For any single ladies who were wondering, he's not married yet, but he's had a steady girlfriend for some years.
John Honney started his own business when the Bank of Montreal decided not to renew the capital commitment to the private equity fund he was working on in 2003. They decided not to divest the portfolio, which opened the door for him to provide services directly to his old portfolio companies, which was outsourced corporate development. He has a handful of clients who periodically have a project for him to lead such as evaluating greenfield projects, dissecting divisional performance and raising debt, but his primary activities consist of helping his clients make acquisitions and eventually to make divestitures. You can check out the website at jkhinc.com.
And John Martin got married. It's a bit belated announcement of his marriage to another Kelloggian, Stacey Turner EMP-49. The wedding was during Memorial Day weekend with good representation of the 1995 class, including Carrie Leonard, Jane Bieneman, Liz Wald, Tom King and Jen Colville.
John also writes: "In late 2007, I joined one of my consulting clients as chief financial officer. HNW (hnw.com) is a strategic marketing service firm that helps companies that are focused on the high-net-worth market. We're in a heavy growth mode, having reached the $10 million revenue and 60-employee mark." John also notes that he celebrated his 40th birthday with a bash in New York.
Dave Holecek and his family are still living in the Chicago area. Dave and Joy have five wonderful kids, which keeps them busy. Dave also started his own marketing research/analysis firm a few years ago. He has a fantastic company and anyone needing top-notch marketing analysis should contact him.
After three and a half years of heads-down work in the emerging field of telehealth, Mariah Scott was thrilled to lead the launch of Intel's first medical device. She writes: "As the director of sales and marketing for Intel's Digital Health Group, I had the opportunity to develop the business plan and take the project from initial funding to the first customer shipment. It's been an amazing experience, and now the hard work begins — ramping up sales of a new category in the healthcare industry."
Beyond work at Intel, Mariah is still enjoying life in the Great Pacific Northwest. She also reports: "This year I climbed Mount Rainier in Washington, rafted the Salmon River in Idaho (with fellow classmate Claire Celeste Carnes) and spent many weekends hiking the trails around Portland. We were happy to have a visit from Charu Kumar over the holidays. She's working with ING and has two great sons (10, 6). She and her family live in Atlanta. We also had a visit from Sandie Oliva (Falagan) and her family, who were in the area for the big Stanford/Berkeley game rooting for her husband's team (Stanford). Sandie is a marketing consultant in the Los Angeles area."
Susan Gertzis (Greenberg) is a marketing manager with U.S. consumer goods at Microsoft in the Chicago area.
Richard Chino and Michelle Quinones Chino are proud to announce the birth of their son Christopher. Christopher is an extremely happy baby and we are enjoying him immensely. He is quite the charmer! Big brother Matthew (2) enjoys reading (like his mom) and hitting golf balls and baseballs (like his dad).
A short update on Marie-Helene Ambard. She's now Marie-Helene Yalom and lives with her husband in the San Francisco Bay area. She's doing well and is busy looking for a new home. I hope to catch up with her soon and have more news on her.
Anne Law Woods and family send a hello from Atlanta. They welcomed Sarah Sophia Woods to their family on June 6. She joined her two older sisters, Isabella and Catherine. Anne continues her work consulting with museums, including the newly opened California Academy of Sciences of San Francisco.
Kathy Schreiner (Brumme) is living in the San Francisco Bay area with husband Peter Brumme and their two little boys. Kathy is in charge of communications for the large finance organization of Hewlett Packard while Peter leads marketing at Kodak Gallery. She writes: "We had a chance to get together with Uzair Dada '94, whose start-up is offering a platform which simplifies complex decision-making, allowing shoppers to make easier gift-giving decisions and retailers to better understand shopper decision-making. We drank some wine and reminisced about Kellogg friends and days and then drank some more wine."
After nearly ten years with Opportunity International (one of the largest international microfinance organizations bringing financial services to poor families), Beth Houle is chief of staff, developing a knowledge management program and global planning process, and expanding global branding and marketing. For the last four years, David Pope has served as president of the Village of Oak Park, Ill., encouraging scorecard practices and community-wide planning. Life is good, they report.
Scott Dunklee was the executive producer of the film "The Matador," (matadorthefilm.com) which follows matador David Fandila's journey throughout Spain and Latin America in a quest to become the world's top-ranked bullfighter. The film was reviewed by several media outlets, including the Los Angeles Times and The New Yorker, plus was a critic's pick by the New York Times. It also was picked up for distribution by City Lights Pictures.
Scott says: "I saw the film's protagonist, David Fandila, in a bullfight in Mexico on an extraordinary November day in 2002. It was an unforgettable moment that remained with me. Two years later, I picked up a copy of the Financial Times and read about an American film maker who was working on a project about Fandila, and the rest is history." Scott adds, "If you're having a mid-life crisis, buy a red sports car instead."
And last, a little update on your class rep Suzy Taherian. Thirteen years later, I'm still with Chevron in the finance area. I've been very happy to have new challenges all the time with eight different jobs during this period. My last two assignments took our family to Houston, Texas, and then Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I was controller for Chevron Argentina. It was an incredibly challenging job but the most rewarding professional and personal experience of my life. We moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area in July, where I'm the planning manager for Chevron's global lubricant division, trying to develop long-term strategies and business plans during these very unpredictable times. Our kids, Damon (4) and Darya (7), keep life interesting.
I want to send a warm thanks to Alejandro Daireaux in Argentina and the rest of the Kellogg Argentina Alumni Club, which was a great network and support for me during my time there. Alejandro is the chief financial officer of the largest lemon exporter in the world and is based in Buenos Aires.
I also wanted to pass along the sad news that our classmate, Rebecca Swarr, passed away in July from lung cancer. Many Kellogians were out in L.A. in October for her memorial service.
