EMP-63

In November, Jim Lott organized the single finest event for EMP-63 since graduation. EMP-63 engaged in its first annual economic symposium. The event, attended by our bright classmates, took place Nov. 21-22 at the James L. Allen Center. The symposium included a forum for each participant to speak on their respective positions and industry forecasts during the current economic downturn. Additional insight and perspective was provided during a captivating presentation and Q&A session with Kellogg professor Sergio Rebelo. Jim weathered 450 calls of "Jim, if this bill gets out of control…" and absolutely crushed the ball on this one.

Eishen Takahashi and Vikas Aditya, both EMP-63 in Portland
Jason Allen EMP-63 and his son Andy at the Krispy Kreme challenge
Michele Azar EMP-63 at the Digital, Life, Design conference in Munich
Sujit Bakre EMP-63 and family on a hike
Sujit Bakre EMP-63 in India
Jon Baksht EMP-63, his wife Kristi, and their sons Will, Charley and the newborn Hunter
Yan Chang EMP-63 in China
An EMP-63 September dinner. From left: Rafiq Mohammadi, Rodney Mayers, Yves Raymond, Ann Marie Peluso, all EMP-63 with friend Flavio
An EMP-63 September gathering. From left: Rafiq Mohammadi, Carolyn Amato, Clem Johnson, Ann Marie Peluso and Kim Jude, all EMP-63
Steve Assarello and Ann-Marie Peluso, both EMP-63 at the Northwestern football game in October
Kevin O'Shaughnessey, Roger Gregory, and Brian Tilley, all EMP-63, on the slopes
Second to left: Ann Marie Peluso and Ronnie Razmi, both EMP-63 at Tavern on Rush with Ronnie's friend

The Allen Center staff played gracious hosts only marred by the look of panic on Miguel's face as some of his most determined former customers from EMP-63 descended on the bar. Special thanks to Bernie and Jason for their assistance in planning and coordinating the event. The symposium also provided an opportunity to meet in a less formal setting during evening breakout sessions at Pete Miller's and Stained Glass. As is custom, an optional late evening lecture and Q&A session was held at CDG. Additional compliments to Paul Del Gallo on his transformation from, "This is going to be an expensive weekend, maybe I can share a room with someone" to "I upgraded to a suite. CDG in room number..."

Attendees for at least one of the breakouts or sessions included: Russell Cravey, Marc Womack, Jason Childers, Rafiq Mohammadi, Clem Johnson, Anand Subramanian, Tim Mahoney, Sujit Bakre, Kinesh Doshi, Mikenzie Steffens-Sari, Ken Sandifer, Kevin McShane, Maureen Floeter Calabrase, Patricia Lott, Brian Beeler, Seiji Shinozaki, Kim Jude, Aldo Mancini EMP-62, Jim Hawk EMP-62. (Brian, Seji and Kim surprisingly only showed up when drinks were served.)

Ellen Siebenborn-Forsyth and her husband Matt are pleased to announce that they have a new baby boy. Clayton William was born Jan. 28 and his big sister Maddison is turning into a big helper. Ellen and family also are in the process of moving to Arkansas (hey, why not do everything?). Ellen has just started a new job as director of General Mills Wal-Mart team. This was a natural move for Ellen, who has long desired to visit the Clinton Presidential Library each weekend.

Kristi and Jon Bakshat had their third son, Samuel Hunter, on Sept. 29. He weighed 7 pounds, 13 ounces – the smallest birth of the three boys. All went well and besides the recent bouts of exhaustion, everyone is doing fine. For those keeping score at home, Sept. 29 was also the day that started the market crash. We do not fool with a birth announcement that was straight from Jon.

Brian Beeler and family welcomed Brock Andrew Beeler into the world on Nov. 3. Older brother Blake is very happy to have a new buddy to play with.

Brian also accepted a new position as associate general counsel at Fenwal, Inc. Fenwal is a blood technologies business based in Lake Zurich, Ill. They focus on worldwide development, manufacturing and global marketing of products that allow blood centers, hospital blood banks and plasma collection centers throughout the world to collect, separate, process, filter, store and administer whole blood and blood components for therapeutic use. Brian's primary focus will be on the legal components of the business and walking through the lab yelling, "Don't drop that!"

Chris Bernauer reports the Bernauer family ventured from North Carolina to visit family and friends in Wisconsin for the holidays. The picture is of Chris and son Ryan playing in the massive snow piles. It was colder than it looks! This was made particularly worse by the fact that Chris is actually not wearing boots.

Bernauer also is pleased to announce that the first Indian Motorcycle dealership had its grand opening in Charlotte, N.C., in October. The event was attended by 5,000 people, including Mikenzie Steffens Sari and her husband Deniz Sari. They really enjoyed themselves but were a bit surprised that the "take away gift on two wheels" was a key chain. Their son Noah thought that it was just great, though. In December, Chris announced that after 18 months of hard work, Indian Motorcycle is delivering 2009 Indian Chief motorcycles to their first seven dealers. The first dealers opening are in Charlotte, N.C., Detroit, Paducah K.Y., Wichita, K.S., Pittsburgh, Phoenix and Omaha, Neb.

He writes: "A mere 18 months ago, we had an empty warehouse and had not yet produced our first prototype motorcycle. After months of very hard work and dedication from a small but outstanding team, we have accomplished great things. To name a few, we have successfully built a manufacturing facility, designed and sourced merchandise and motorcycle accessories, started Indian Motorcycle apparel, established the beginning of a very high-class dealer network, and last but not least, designed, tested and launched four models of the incredible Indian Chief motorcycle."

If there isn't a dealer near you, you have an open invitation to the Charlotte area where Chris will give you a personal tour of the factory and the beautiful Charlotte dealership. Or they can actually let you have the tour with someone who won't pepper it with sarcasm.

Rosemary McGuillicutty is pleased to announce she is entering the world of green technology. After her recent unsuccessful drilling experiment on the streets of New York, Rosemary and Dimitri have decided to focus on renewable energy. The current process involves the conversion of recyclable material and putting it through a special process called "burning in an oil drum." This "clean trash" technology has provided light, heat and an interesting coloration to the McGuillicutty household. She hopes everyone will stop by for hotdish and a special dining and technology experience.

Once again, Roger Gregory hosted Kevin O'Shaughnessey and Brian Tilley at his place in Steamboat Springs, Colo., for their annual ski trip. They pounded and shredded the slopes on intense trails like Rainbow, Sweet Girl and Cute Puppy. After numerous failed attempts to capture a photo, they were able to locate a Wal-Mart with a lovely mountain backdrop. If you look closely, you will see the sweat on their brows from wearing alpine ski gear inside the photo studio. There was some disappointment in that the goal each year is to create excuses for not attending the EMP-63 Super Bowl party, and since we postponed that this year, they are basically just messing with Photoshop.

James Park picked up scuba diving this year and dove at Sipadan Island off the coast of Malaysia. Photo of James swimming among barracuda has been provided. For those of you who are concerned, we are not sure those were barracuda, but we are positive it's not really James. James also met up with Wiener Mondesir and Safak Guven in Las Vegas during CES. This was, of course, completely necessary and they would have gotten together anywhere the convention was. To stick it out in Vegas takes a big effort, but they rose to the occasion. Rodney Myers also moved to the Bay Area so Weiner, Rodney and James met up for dinner. James declined seafood.

Hans Van Wees has been traveling the world since September, weathering out the "storm." Currently in New Zealand, he had hoped to get a few pictures and a short story to us, but Internet access is somewhat sporadic where he is – Te Anau on South Island. His last e-mail said, "Karen and I have now finally settled in The Hague after eight days on a bike around the Netherlands shortly after we arrived here." We expect his next update to state that he is lost in Antarctica and is harking back to all of the prior case studies to survive. He really should have read them. Or listened to the answers.

Chris Brogan and his wife Mireya drove from Austin, Texas, to the Alamo Bowl. Their second date was the last time that Northwestern went to play in the Alamo Bowl. They tailgated and drowned our sorrows with Brent and Amy Peebles '98 on the riverfront in San Antonio. In a stunning turn, Chris did not lose his car keys or get stranded en route, unlike at the last two Super Bowl parties. We think Mireya keeps him on the straight and narrow.

Yan Chang visited Shanghai and Beijing in December. Yan reported that since our GIM trip, the Shanghai skyline continues to expand and Beijing has significantly improved because of the changes and new amenities built for the Olympics. He had a very good time and ate at many great restaurants, thanks to his friends in both cities. Interestingly, you will note from his picture that all of the people he met up with, and every person at the tourist attraction, cleared out when it came time for a picture.

Jason Allen took a Saturday off from managing wind farms at Duke Energy. He and his son Andy ran the Krispy Kreme Challenge in Raleigh on Feb. 7. This race involves running two miles, eating a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts and running two miles back all in under one hour. Jason is proud to admit he'll do almost anything for a free donut.

Michele Azar has been busy readying for the Best Buy Remix Beta at Web 2.0 Expo in New York (bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/the-api-bug-hits-old-retail-and-old-media). This is a new strategy for Best Buy, in which they decide to go where the customers are spending time and engage in new spaces online beyond the Web site. Remix is about giving up control in order to create value through collaboration with customers, developers, partners, and our 160,000 employees. The next phase will include engaging with 9,000 developers at SXSW interactive show in Austin (remix.bestbuy.com).

Beyond launching cool stuff like Remix, Michele has been giving talks on how social technology and open approaches impact leadership. You can learn more about where Best Buy is in this journey at Best Buy's Open for Business at youtube.com/watch?v=whzN-7uCiZw. An earlier piece called, "From Modern Times to Open Times," featured a mash up of all the Wiki-like things happening and how employees are self-organizing to get stuff done. View it at youtube.com/watch?v=n9cKXZBYapQ.

Finally, on the global front, Michele teamed with Brad Anderson, CEO of Best Buy; Don Tapscott, author of Wikinomics and Grown Up Digital; and Peter Hirshberg, chairman of the Conversation Group, presented a social technology leadership talk at DLD (Europe's leading digital conference) in Munich in January. Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg showed up for a surprise closing talk. Zuckerberg reinforced Facebook's value as a global platform for friends to share relevant information in a very transparent way. It was an amazing experience and provided an insightful integrative view of the problems and opportunities facing our global economy.

Michelle is also coaching girls' basketball and planned a spring break trip to Switzerland in March for the family. And after all of this, Michele ran two marathons, invented an alternate fuel for cars based on lemon peels and rebalanced the federal budget.

In early October, Steve Azzarello and Ann-Marie Peluso joined EMP-64's reunion at the Northwestern Wildcats vs. the Michigan State Spartans game. In an unusual twist they both rooted for the Spartans. And then the Spartans lost 48-41.

After consulting with his investment advisor, Sujit Bakre and his family decided to take a hike close to home in Illinois instead of his desired destination, Yosemite National Park. In late fall, he and his family hiked at Apple River Canyon State Park. It certainly didn't have the majestic or rugged feel of the Sierras, but was scenic and hilly enough to fool one to resemble Appalachian foothills. Needless to say, he plans to visit again in summer. Sujit also made a short visit to India and Germany. In his hometown of Pune, he can be seen driving a three-wheeler smart car that looks like a taxi (a.k.a "rickshaw"). This model is not only fuel-efficient, but can fit four of him in it, if you wanted to be in a vehicle with four Sujits. He feels that this can be a reliable alternative employment opportunity should the need arrive. It will be difficult to do with the number of moving violations he racked up in India.

Russell Cravey reports his practice has been fortunately unaffected by the economic slowdown. He spent some time saltwater fly fishing in the Lower Laguna Madre in early January and enjoyed relaxing, quiet holidays at home. Please note that no part of that update includes the phrase "caught" or "cooked" fish. He just went fishing. Rhonda has been spending a lot of time with the Jack Russell Terrier Rescue Network fostering dogs from kill shelters and placing them into good homes. This whole process was a bit confusing to Dr. Cravey, who thought it was about placing people named Russell in good homes when they are in trouble for disappearing to go fishing.

Kinesh Doshi has lived through some exciting times at Encora, participating in the consulting firm's growth to nine offices. He also received firsthand experience raising venture capital with Sequoia as Encora was sold to a larger firm in the same space. Of course the largest lesson learned was how the final price has little to do with to do with the net present value of the future cash flows. He is now wondering why he's been saving all the valuation models he built at Kellogg. He is still at Encora, but noted that while entering 2009, he lost his pipeline somewhere and thinks Sandeep Laroia stole it since Sandeep hasn't been returning anyone's calls. If anyone finds Kinesh's pipeline or Sandeep, please inform him ASAP.

Kinesh also became a U.S. citizen this winter and was thrilled when he took the oath of allegiance. Similar to his approach on Kellogg reading assignments, he's still on page one of the Declaration of Independence. This step has improved the United States. Requests to have the oath administered by Chief Justice Roberts to see if he could get it right almost cost him the citizenship. Kinesh and his wife Preeti also visited Delhi last year and spent an entire month with his parents relaxing and catching up.

Beth Eckenrode accepted a new role at Heinz and is running their soup business, which largely involves supplying soups to restaurants. Considering the current economy, Beth's division is booming. She is on the forefront of comfort food to satisfy recessionary stomachs. She is happy to be back in the world of profits and losses. Unrelated to this, Heinz is pleased to announce the latest product, "Mamma Bear's Soup," famous for scolding male consumers who are involved in any level of behavior Beth deems questionable.

Andrew Gillen, inspired by Michele Azar's new career heights, has decided to chart a new course and is playing bass guitar in a Spanish-language KISS cover band called Besos. We are unable to make this any funnier than what was submitted. Except we picture this Spanish language band with a bass player in a bear suit and you know what? It got funnier.

Peter Granat accepted the position of CEO and president for Cision Europe. He and the Granat family relocated to London in January, where he will continue his successful career at Cision. This is really a great opportunity for Peter to claim he is late coming home from work because he kept getting in the wrong side of the car. Polo is now making sure to "always be out of town".

Jim Hammer continues to work way too much and then spends the remainder of time with his wife (Patti) and son (Michael). When not at home in Davenport, Iowa, during the week, they try to spend as many weekends as possible (all in the summer) at their lake house in Missouri (where an unending supply of Heineken exists). What was really unusual about this is that their lake house abuts a Heineken warehouse, which has been reporting problems.

Kim Jude continues to conquer the Pepsi career ladder with great fervor, but occasionally resurfaces to have dinner with her Kellogg comrades. She and Ann-Marie Peluso enjoyed a girls' weekend in Chicago in late October, dining and enjoying the spa. The two have also been spotted over the winter in Chicago at Spring, The Black Orchid, Meiji and Avec. We would like to remind them that a girls' weekend usually involves something farther than the town they live in. This is like a girls' weekend at the supermarket.

Sandeep Laroia, the über technologist and traveler, did report via Blackberry that he was in India, but disclosed no further details (apparently shopping Kinesh's pipeline). Sandeep promised a full report (sans the price tag sold for Kinesh's goods) for the next Kellogg World. Word is that he is actually trying to track Hans down around the globe. And has had no luck, due to Hans travelling with a blurry passport.

Ann-Marie Peluso, Rafiq Mohammadi, Rodney Mayers and Yves Raymond had dinner at Le Colonial in October when Rodney visited Chicago on business. This was a fine dinner of Vietnamese-French fusion combined with huge conversational fusion. Ann-Marie also caught up with Ron Razmi over dinner and drinks in November at Le Colonial and Tavern on Rush while Ronnie was in town on business. Le Colonial would like to say that they are considering a "no singing section."

In late September, the EMP-63 Chicago supper club met at Marche. Ann-Marie Peluso, Clem Johnson, Kim Jude, Rafiq Mohammadi and Carolyn Amato EMP-64 enjoyed each other's company. The other customers at Marche had different feedback. Clem asking everyone, "Do you ski?" didn't help.

David and Hilary Seematter visited Chicago in late October. The Seematters, along with Clem and Katherine Johnson, Maureen and John Calabrese, and Kim Jude and Ann-Marie Peluso attended. A good time was had by all and they really only went over Kellogg stories until dessert. Well, maybe a little after.

In the first week of February, James Park came to Chicago and attended Ann-Marie Peluso's fitness class, where she wiped him out. James is unsure if he'll ever do another sit-up. He immediately took up scuba diving and preferred swimming with the barracudas. Later that same week, Ann-Marie also came to Boston in February, where she intended to catch up with Paul Del Gallo who made restaurant suggestions, plans, and then pulled a no-show.

In February, Peter Granat and Marta Granat caught up with Paul Del Gallo in Boston. Paul and his wife Heather met them at a club called "Middle East" in Cambridge, as they prepared for their overseas journey. The club featured Marta's father's band which got back together for the night. When asked if he could get in free, Paul said, "Of course, how could I not forget free for friends in Boston?"

Jason Childers and Paul Del Gallo caught up with Catherine and Clem Johnson in January. The Johnsons graciously hosted them, which Paul appreciated so much he stayed over two nights. Jason Childers and Paul Del Gallo also caught up with Tim Mahoney in New York for dinner. Paul enjoyed it so much he stayed over at Tim's that night. In unrelated news, EMP-63 has pretty much made clear to Paul Del Gallo that he cannot come over to dinner with Jason Childers, as he continues to take up guest rooms when he does so.

After being a loyal employee for six years to one company, Alfonso Cantalapiedra made sure he did not follow that boring pattern again and has switched jobs twice in less than a year. Alfonso left his role at Career Education Corporation to join the largest player in the private education business, the Apollo Group, owners of University of Phoenix. Alfonso will be the vice president of corporate development leading the Latin America expansion and integration. This move gives him the opportunity to access more financial fire power and a wide array of resources domestically and internationally per APOL's partnership with the Carlyle Group for international ventures. Not to mention he gets to remain working from home in Miami.

Alfonso is very excited about this move and wants to thank Clem Johnson for once again stepping in as a career coach and Paul for psychological help (which mostly involved asking, "Do you apply for the job online or at one of their many centers?"). Alfonso also wants to thank the classmates that made his leap into the private education space possible. It has been very rewarding to be able to impact the education quality in Latin America and help the region in that way, he writes. This role will still be taking Alfonso to Chicago (the city this time!), as well as Phoenix. In other news, Alfonso also won MVP honors in a flag football league and the trophy was a one-gallon bottle of Bacardi rum. This was really a great experience considering that there was no team on the other side of the field. In the family front, Alfonso, Karla and Marco visited with family for three weeks in Puerto Rico. They quickly learned that one week should be the firm limit. Family is thrilled with this new career change.

Eishen Takahashi and Vikas Aditya met at Portland's famous McMenamins Pub to catch up on business and personal news as well as to sample some of the locally brewed beers. They enjoyed great-tasting Ruby and Hammerhead brews, but the highlight of the visit was Eishin's story about his recent purchase of a keychain depicting an Indian motorcycle, which he received from Chris Bernauer when he drove from Atlanta to Portland. Eishin also compiled more than 200K miles of air travels. Hey, someone needs to get this economy going again. Both were missing Chicago days and the Super Bowl party in Dallas.