1995 — Full-Time

	Todd and Christy Forest, both’95, at the beach in Australia
	Clockwise from bottom left: Aiyana Shahani Tuteja, Monisha Shahani ’95, Carissa Ganelli ’95 and Jeremy Buss

Hello and Happy 2010! The Reunion committee is busy getting ready for our Reunion in the spring. I’m pretty excited about it and it’s been nice to reconnect with some old friends. Hopefully, you’ve received an invite to visit our Kellogg alumni Facebook page. (Thanks to Margaret Godfrey Douglas.) Take a look to say hi. If you’re not linked to it, just drop me an e-mail.

In the San Francisco area, we held a pre-reunion class of ’95 SF warm-up event Feb. 2 at Kerry O’Rourke Bischof’s house in Atherton, Calif. It was great to see a lot of Kelloggians from the Classes of 1994 and 1995. We had a super turnout. It’s always a pleasant surprise to me how wonderful and easy it is to reconnect with old Kellogg friends and how much we have in common after all these years. We swapped some parenting stories and some business cards and heard from Interim Dean Sunil Chopra about how to connect with and leverage the Kellogg network. Dan Laflin and I agreed to start up a renewable energy company, with him as CEO and me as CFO. Edward "Skip" Wipson flew in from Minneapolis, no doubt looking for payment for his muffin (please read below). Jules Veloria also came to town from faraway to join us. Dan Kelly shared stories of having twins. Carla Newmayer Cooper and I strategized about starting a women-owned financial services company. Jim Beckemeyer and I compared notes on capital planning at large corporations and hope to get together to benchmark best (and worst) practices. I also enjoyed seeing Chris Scott Pollak, Kathy Schreiner Brumme and Dodie Sutro Crawford. Win Reis gave me pointers about Boy Scouts for my son. Rob Mihalko and I commiserated about the juggling acts of working parents. I was really sorry to lose touch with Mitch Nelson so it was great to see him again and catch up. He was surprised to see that I was beginning to look a lot like a finance person. He is the director of managed hosting at Adobe but is also busy with many farming ventures. I could swear that as he dashed out the door he mentioned something about attending to a pregnant ewe?

From the class of ’94, we had a great turnout too: Henry and Hallie Alfaro, Ty, Curry, Uzair Dada, Ann Diederich, Bruno Larvol, Paul Machle, Karen Mak, Kathleen Jordan, Will Marks, Evelyn Armstrong, Tim McClelland, Samira Parekh Jones, Louis Ponticas, Bill Schmitt, Ron Sann, and Scott Pofcher. Uzair and I live near each other and our elder daughters were born days apart at the same hospital. He’s CEO of Iron Horse Interactive. You may recall Louis Ponticas ’94 started Kafé Kellogg when we were there and that’s where many of us got our lunch or snack between group meetings and classes. Well, it was strange to hear that from Interim Dean Chopra that Kafé Kellogg now serves 2,400 meals per day! Even Louis was impressed. How the school has grown and changed. The students spend more time on campus than ever before.

Amy Lehr Shriber sent in some news about the New York City "Reunion Warm-Up" party in October at Erica Rutkin Keswin’s apartment. Roxanne Hori was the featured speaker and it was great to catch up with her and hear all that is going on back in Evanston. Many local classmates came out for the event, including Jane Bieneman, Stacey Castor, Rob Constable, Liz Crystal, Jackie Greene Orenstein, John Haegle, Leigh Lanier Hrazdira, Catharina Kusuma, Carrie Leonard, Linda Lewis Press, Stella Lin, Art Muldoon and his wife Peyton, Liam O’Neil, Heather Raker, Seth Ruthen, Avery Schmeisser, Liz Wald, Elizabeth Baron Daliere and Rebecca Sober Rousavil. After 15 years, everyone was psyched to see each other and hear the latest in their busy lives. Some people even decided that night that they were going to attend our Reunion (April 30-May 2) weekend, which is fantastic. It reminded us all what great friendships we made back at Kellogg.

Mark Lamps and John Honney are putting together a slideshow for the Reunion. So if you have any great photos you’d like to share, please send them to mark.lamps@pentair.com or jhonney@rcn.com.

Rick Berg continues to gain strength after a battle last winter with skin cancer in his throat — a battle that he won. Three successful PET scans over the past few months show that it’s all gone. He took a trip home to Connecticut for Christmas with his sons Ben (16 and driving) and Sam (12 and ready to be a teenager). He’s working with the Class of ’95 Reunion team to plan events for the spring reunion in Evanston. He catches up regularly with James Pitts, who is also in Atlanta, and stayed with Per Torgersen and Ted Pfeiffer on a trip to Chicago in the fall. He had a good time hanging out with their twin daughters.

Since our last update, I had a lively visit with Claire-Celeste Carnes and Mariah Scott in Seattle. We had brunch at the top of the Space Needle. I hadn’t seen Mariah in almost 15 years. She’s as youthful and intelligent as ever. She is living in Portland with her husband and two kids and works for Intel.

Barbara Wansborough Toth (Bam to most of us) is doing well. She, her husband and their very cute daughter live in San Francisco. She had a fun pumpkin carving party for Halloween where Jim Beckemeyer, Kathy Schreiner Brumme and I practiced our pumpkin carving techniques. No, we didn’t win any awards.

I had breakfast with Edward (Skip) Wipson as he was visiting San Francisco one morning. It was his treat so I picked the most expensive spot in town. That was the best $35 muffin I’ve ever had. He is a principal with HighPoint Associates (HighPoint-Associates.com) in Minneapolis. It’s a consulting firm started by former McKinsey consultants. He also advises on M&A transactions and is involved with green/renewable energy ventures.

By the way, I’m finding that there is a strong and growing number of Kellogg alumni at Chevron. You may have heard that Chevron CFO Patricia Yarrington ’79 is a Kellogg alum. We had our first Chevron-Kellogg alumni lunch in the Bay Area a few days ago and seven of us attended. There are quite a few more who couldn’t attend or who are working overseas and in other U.S. locations. I fortuitously found Gregg Rotenberg, who works in Chevron Energy Solutions in San Francisco, but our paths hadn’t crossed before. Chevron Energy Solutions develops energy efficiency and renewable power projects.

Ross Goralnick had some news. He and his family are in New York. He started Lumeric Consulting(lumericconsulting.com), a management consulting firm providing competitive strategy, commercial due diligence and acquisition strategy services.

I was discussing the reunion with some classmates in Asia. I really enjoyed hearing from them again. It’s a long trip from Asia but some are seriously thinking about coming to Evanston for the 15-year Reunion and it would be wonderful to see them again.

It’s been a few years so it was great to hear from Dave Fry again. He and his wife Des have two kids (a boy and a girl). I had lost touch with him as they moved around the globe. They moved from Sydney to Dallas with Frito Lay for six years, spent one year at Pepsico headquarters in Purchase, N.Y., moved to Hong Kong for two years, and have been in Bangkok for the last three years.

It was wonderful to hear from Shinko Baba. He and his wife Ikuyo are doing well. You may remember that their daughter Akari (15) was born in Evanston during our second year at Kellogg. They also have daughter Mikoto (13). Shinko works for a Swiss private bank, Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch, at its Tokyo office as a compliance officer.

Another friend I hadn’t heard from in a long time was Ayumi Sakurai. He is running Valiant Partners Co. Ltd., a small private equity firm in Japan with some former colleagues.

I used to see Deborah Nelson from time to time when we both worked in San Francisco but lost touch when I moved away. It was good to find her again. She is executive director of Social Venture Network (svn.org), based in San Francisco. She’s married and keeps busy with two sons (1, 7).

The news from Liz Wald is that she is director of international business development at Etsy (etsy.com). She’s travelling the globe, going to the annual Kellogg ski trip in March, participating in Run America in June and generally living a life of adventure. Did I mention she had a face-to-face encounter with a BEAR?

John Martin sends hellos. He, Liz Wald, Jane Bieneman, Erica Rutkin Keswin and a few friends were in Aspen skiing in March.

Here’s a great update from Leonard Zemlinsky: "My professional after-Kellogg story is somewhat similar to many of the classmates. Until 2004, I worked for SAP, consulting with Fortune 500 clients on large SAP ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems. While I was at SAP, my wife (whom I met while I was at Kellogg) went through medical school and a four-year medical residency program. By the end of my tenure with SAP, I could take supply chain operations of any major SAP client apart like a Lego game, and reconstruct it any way a business wanted. The challenge was not there anymore and the company was not after growth, so I decided to refresh early Kellogg memories and strike out on my own again (those of you who remember me may recollect that when I was not at the group meetings, I was importing computer components from Taiwan and reselling them to Chicago-area computer assembly shops). By the time my wife opened her first office in New York City in 2004, I had left SAP and started Platinum Advisors Inc. (platinum-advisors.net), a small consulting firm with offices in Chicago and Marlboro, N.J. The East Coast was a natural choice for us, since most of our customers in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries were based there, and my wife was planning to open her multi-office medical practice there as well, targeting the aging populations of New York and New Jersey.

"Our last five years were enjoyable and packed with action. Platinum Advisors grew to 12 senior consultants, mainly seasoned Big 4 veterans who decided to join us, and 20-plus junior consultants working on our teams across the country. We added a few large accounts to the client lists, including the U.S. government. We also added two more kids, bringing the total to four: Samantha (17), Adam (10), Jacob (16 months) and Abigail (4 months). We would probably have a few more, but ironically we do have an ‘internal cost’ of having each extra child. I usually lose a few good consultants and sometimes a client, due to less time spent in business. My wife usually closes one of her offices for lack of time to manage all of them with the same level of attention. We also end up missing one full ski season in Utah, and have to change a house for a larger one to fit extra kids. We now ski in the East, instead of flying to the Rockies as we used to. I am heading to Vermont this winter to explore local winter resorts so as to simplify vacation logistics for the family of six for the next few years. East Coast Kellogg grads with skiing affection are welcome to team up, with or without kids.

"I was trying to get in touch with few Kellogg classmates. Time takes its toll and people spend more time with their children and grandchildren. I got in touch with Lee Ruderman, who lives in North Carolina, and James Hackett, who is still in Chicago. Slava Sinadski moved to Moscow few years ago, and we exchange occasional e-mails. I am planning to visit him sometime soon and hopefully team up for a good skiing trip to the Alps. We have quite an active Kellogg alumni group in Philadelphia. Dave Paoni ’02, who leads the Philly Kellogg chapter, manages to get together with a lot of us on short notice, and has a great taste for good restaurants in the Philly area, where meetings often take place."

Brent Harrison and wife Jennifer Ayre have expanded their San Francisco/Bay Area wine bar and wine shop to a second location (now in Redwood City and Mountain View). Even if you don’t live in the Bay Area, check out their wine clubs (savvycellar.com/clubs). Be like Ken Ewell who is the talk of his wine geek friends in San Antonio, Texas, for having many interesting wines shipped to him monthly as a Savvy Wine Club member. Brent and Jennifer (clearly bitten by the entrepreneurial bug) also launched an Internet video site dedicated to the informative and irreverent video review of organic wines, called Organic Wine Review (organicwinereview.com). See Brent "The Average Wine Guy" take on sommeliers with his less-than-expert palate. Critics claim he is better looking than Gary Vaynerchuck and doesn’t scream as much. Kids Hanna (13), Parker (11) and Carter (3) keep them on their toes on the home front. Despite the wine sideline, Brent continues to run a Silicon Valley-based marketing consultancy, SmokeJumper Strategy, as his full-time vocation, helping to make the world safer for software and Internet companies.

Todd and Christy Forest made me really jealous with this update: "We moved to Sydney, Australia, two and a half years ago. It’s been a terrific ‘sea change’ for the family, and we live just above Manly Beach. Since graduating from Kellogg, Christy traveled frequently to Australia and New Zealand for work, and both of us fell in love with the beautiful geography and relaxed lifestyle. When the corporate executive board asked Christy to run Asia Pacific and open an office in Sydney, she jumped at the opportunity. I left the online U.S. space (AOL and jobfox) and now manage the leading online portal in Australia (ninemsn.com.au). We are exploring the region as well with our kids, Tasman (8) and Callie (5), and have to been to Cairns, Tasmania, Thailand and Bali this past year. We would love to have any classmates come visit us if they are in this part of the world!"

The Ganelli/Buss family is doing well in Greenwich, Conn. Andrew joined The Nielsen Company as vice president on the Kraft account after 15 years in management consulting. As you can imagine, they have more Oreos and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese than they know what to do with. Carissa is amused to remember that her New Year’s resolution for 1995 was to learn how to use this new-fangled thing called the Internet. Little did she know that she’d spend the last 10 years working on all things related to online marketing and strategy. They were hoping to make it back for Reunion but Aidan’s (7) first communion is that same weekend and, well, God comes before TG. Jeremy (3) is thrilled to have his own Kellogg connection. He goes to preschool with Aiyana (2.5), the daughter of Monisha Shahani ’94 and husband Vikas Tuteja, who live just a few blocks away.

Look forward to seeing everyone at Reunion in Evanston.