1993 — Full-Time

Winston Ball ’93 and Hayley wed last October in Half Moon Bay
Heather Forsythe ’93 enjoying Venice
David Semb ’93 with wife Miranda and son Jacob

Congratulations to David Semb and his wife Miranda, who had their first baby Jacob Henry Semb last year. They’re having a great time and Dave is loving fatherhood, "even the diaper-changing and the six months without sleep. Greatest thing that ever happened to me besides marrying Miranda (and going to Kellogg, of course)." Maybe Jake will be a Kellogg alum someday, too!

Brian Vogel is in Vermont with Manchester Capital. His family made the move after Thanksgiving. He writes: "The transition is going well and we are all settling into our new life here. The kids love the snow and while the change in temperatures is dramatic after two years in Santa Rosa, life here is good."

Karen Wehner had an eventful 2009. In April, she and her training buddies won the women’s masters division of the River-to-River Relay in Marion, Ill. She writes: "They gave us a gigantic silver platter. My husband Paul took one look at it and said, ‘When did you guys win Wimbledon?’" In May, Karen took a full-time summer job at Pactiv (they own the Hefty brand), subbing for a woman on maternity leave. She finished up just in time to convalesce from a bad bike accident she had while riding with her training buddies: "After an ambulance ride, six hours lying on a board in the ER, a CT scan, two sets of X-rays and an MRI, it was determined that I had fractured my neck and herniated a disc. Sounds bad, but not one doctor spoke to me without first saying, ‘You are incredibly lucky.’ They were right." In September, Karen started up again at Pactiv, working two days a week: "It’s totally great. A little crazier in terms of schedule management, but totally great. And last week I threw a half-Ironman on the calendar for 2010. Nothing says ‘comeback’ like 70.3 miles of fun."

Life for Karen is great on the home front, too. She and her husband Paul have three wonderful boys: Nate, Mark and Allen. Nate (4) is destined to be a hockey player: "He may not make it to the NHL, but he’s going to play hockey as long as someone will let him. Mark is high-maintenance and brilliant — much like you’d imagine the love child of Mariah Carey and Stephen Hawking. He’s a swimmer, writer, Lego genius and Cub Scout. And Allen, now in junior high, is taller than Paul, and his voice is almost as deep. He plays in the orchestra, sings in the boys’ chorus, is on student council and joined the debate team, where he’s racked up two second-place finishes in three debates."

Winston Ball also had an eventful year. In 2009, he moved to San Francisco to be Blue Shield of California’s senior director of strategy and business development, with a primary focus on mergers and acquisitions. He was married in October to Hayley Barnett, now Hayley Ball, at the Ritz Carlton Half Moon Bay. Hayley moved from Britain and the pair live in downtown San Francisco. Winston writes: "Once Hayley receives her travel visa, the real party will be in London where we will have a late wedding reception with our families and friends." In the past few months Winston also completed the Escape from the Rock triathlon (which included swimming from Alcatraz to Aquatic Park) and ran the California International Marathon. He comments, "It has been an exhausting but fun ride and I feel very blessed."

Bill Falconer brings us an update from Atlanta. Chris Plunkett joined Bill for the Georgia Tech vs. Clemsongame and they "had a blast." Jay "the Truth" Williams works for PODS and Bill sees Scott Sanders a lot as "he is working on his 101st business deal." Satish Lathi road-tripped with Bill to the Orange Bowl, where they braved 40-degree temperatures on South Beach. Bill runs into Dick Grapenthin at the airport from time to time, and had lunch a few months ago with serial entrepreneur Jon Matthews, who started a collegiate apparel company, The Kwad. Walt Jenkins has his own company and lives near Bill and Charlie Thompson. Charlie works in health care and has two beautiful daughters. Kevin Kowalski works for Intercontinental Hotels Group and Ann Workman is an independent consultant. As for Bill, he helped start a management consulting firm six years ago, Midtown Consulting Group, and coaches his four children in various sports. His wife Sharon continues to police him, and the little girl that used to run freely at Kellogg happy hours, Elizabeth, is now a college girl and "I’m funding her road trips to various concerts around the U.S."

The recent holidays were a blur of activity for Ken Yager. He is starting his second year as a partner at Morris Anderson and doesn’t see much of an end in sight for the work. Ken is focused on printing, media and service firms while his partners are focused on automotive and building products. He writes: "As you can imagine, the turnaround and crisis management business is very busy. Yes, the economy is improving and jobs will return, but it takes a long time to clean up the mess from a recession. We only work in the middle market so you will not read about us in the Wall Street Journal, but we did make it into Fortune magazine this past fall with Norwalk Furniture."

With his work schedule, Ken doesn’t anticipate much travel in 2010, "but when this cycle ends, I look forward to catching up with some travel and visiting long-lost Kellogg friends." When he’s not working, Ken enjoys time with his wife of 20 years, Cary, and sons CJ (13) and Oley (15), noting, "We do a lot with football and lacrosse these days."

As for me, Heather Forsythe, after my start-up, PayCycle, was purchased by Intuit and I found myself without a job, I decided to take advantage of the free time and went to Europe for a few weeks with some friends in November and December. We had a chance to explore Dubrovnik, Croatia (I had never been); Ephesus and Kusadasi, Turkey; Athens, Greece; Venice, Rome, Amalfi, Pompei, Florence, and Pisa, Italy; Nice and Eze, France; Monte Carlo, Monaco; and Barcelona, Spain. It was truly a trip of a lifetime! I spent most of the month of January interviewing or preparing for interviews … and it paid off. While I don’t yet know where my next job will be, I did get some great news today that one of my target companies will be extending me an offer next week. Yeah!

I want to thank David, Brian, Karen, Winston, Bill, and Ken for your submissions. Very much appreciated. I’d love to hear from more of you, so why not drop me an e-mail with a quick update or photo. Our class notes are only as good as the submissions I get!