1994

Hello, all! As I sit writing this with the expectation of yet more snow tonight, I can only hope that by the time you read it that spring has sprung wherever you are. And without further commentary, here is the news from our classmates. Thanks to those who sent in updates!

Congratulations to Scott Peterson and wife Katie who welcomed son Alexander Godfrey Peterson on Feb. 5. Alex joins big sister Marit in Minneapolis.

Chris Elbert has a new position with Global Development Solutions as an international development consultant. In her own words: "I work with the World Bank and other clients in glamorous locations, like Somaliland, where (after appropriate security and abduction training of course) I identify ways to grow their gums and resins and fisheries industries. I highly recommend the delightfully fragrant frankincense." The project reunites Chris with Glenn Surabian who is with the same firm. They had not worked together since the MBA Enterprise Corps in Poland, right after graduation. Chris caught up in January with Marjolein Baghuis, who visited New York to launch Global Reporting Initiative's U.S. office. While in New York, she stayed with Chris and they managed to see Spiderman the musical, Sunil Hirani and Linda Lavine, though not all at once.

Nora El Goulli is still based in London and working in pharmaceutical strategy consulting. Working for herself allows her to devote time to volunteer work. Medicines for Roatan, the Pharma NGO that she started in Honduras, is now in its fifth year and provides medicines for approximately 20,000 patients each year. She continues to serve on the board, but is no longer running the organization. Nora also shared news of the developments in her home country of Tunisia after the recent revolution. Nora writes: "The country now needs to go through the challenging process of becoming a democracy." She is helping some childhood friends who are starting a new political party in the country. While not interested in politics herself, she is eager to contribute to policy development at the start-up phase and comments, "There is a great sense of history being made at the moment!"

Bruno Larvol lives in San Francisco with his wife Wan Chi (who received her MD from Northwestern) and their son (5). Bruno runs a pharmaceutical competitive intelligence business and is working to expand internationally. He traveled to Tokyo, where he met up with Takeshi Ito and was treated to a terrific dinner at the Tokyo fish market (including Fugu Hire Sake) with Takeshi Kasai.

Kevin Lee writes that he was able to catch up with Bruno when he was in Chicago, along with Marci Chapman, Laura McKee and Doug Warshauer. Kevin said he is always talking to "big" Mike Haglin in Minneapolis and Mark "Manderson" Anderson in Cincinnati, and also met up with Uzair Dada, Doug and David Cooperman when Uzair was in town. Kevin reports: "I'm always hearing from the biggest Bears fan in Portugal/Europe/Eastern Hemisphere, Joao da Silva. He's always skiing with his wife and two girls, it seems. I annually get to hang out along the beach in Pentwater, Mich., with Tim Davis, Catherine from The Distractions and their three girls. Janice and the gals are well. Teresa (15) is a freshman in high school and sailing for her school, while Christine (13) is in 7th grade and plays hoops and volleyball."

Don Johnston is in New York and works as a managing director at Optima Fund Management. The fund has over $3 billion of primarily hedge fund assets under management and is SEC-registered. His wife Junko is an artist and takes classes at the Art Students League.

Lynne Bey has been running a Quiznos shop in Cleveland since 2004.

In January, Karen (Jones) Mak and her family moved to Melbourne, Australia, for fun for a few years. Things are going great so far and visitors are welcome! Before leaving the Bay Area, Betsy Schmitt and Richard Goozh hosted going away parties.

Connie (Gute) Walsh and her family (Jeff Walsh '93 and girls) visited Chicago over the holidays. Together with Lisa and Mike Axelrod, Sally and Scott Pofcher and my family, we had a great time doing all sorts of stuff, including sledding, ice skating on the Axelrod's backyard rink, playing paddle tennis, seeing Wicked, hanging out and just catching up. Connie lives in Wellesley, Mass., and works for Staples on the private label business. I also had a chance to see Julie Roberts who came to town in the winter and connected with Kellogg friends including Sally Pofcher and MB Barron. Julie is working on healthcare reform issues with Blue Shield of California. MB joined Korn/Ferry as the global vice president of marketing for the leadership and talent consulting business led by our classmate Ana Dutra, who is CEO.

Lastly, Dave Peak moved from Chicago to Connecticut with his family and they love being in New England. He bought a lake house in the Berkshires and enjoys watching his dog and daughter swim each other into exhaustion. Dave is leading front-end innovation for The Hartford, a Fortune 100 firm where he has launched several products, including The Hartford Mobile and FleetAhead (a commercial vehicle product). He has authored a half a dozen patents and is working on interesting applications, including location aware technologies, social media, etc. The goal is to try to find the "next big thing" that will add half a billion or a billion in revenue ten years hence. Connect with Dave via davepeak.com.

Until next time! Feel free to send along any news whenever you have it.