TMP 2002

After a two-issue hiatus, the TMP 2002 Class Notes section has returned, bigger and better than ever.

Ed Walters left his job as a brand manager at Kraft Foods to attend the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he earned a master of public administration degree in 2004. Ed started consulting at BoozAllenHamilton in June 2004, where he supports mostly government clients who work for the Department of Defense. Ed currently resides in Arlington, Va., near Washington, D.C.

Jeff Wojcik in September joined Cosi Inc. as director of financial planning and analysis.

Jonathan Levine works at Zurich North America in Schaumburg, Ill., as a VP of marketing. Jonathan and his wife Joanna welcomed their second child, Nicole Ivy Levine, on March 29.

Though Sumeet Kapoor continues his work at Motorola, he has also founded his own company called Notes Inc., which captures the institutional knowledge of organizations. Despite his extremely busy work life, Sumeet still finds time to travel (recent trips include Ireland and India), play cricket and regularly visit with his many friends from Kellogg.

Jill Kiersky Marcus and husband Andrew welcomed son Joshua James Marcus on March 19. Jill continues to work as an equity research analyst at Morningstar, where she has been since November 2001. Jill reports that Morningstar has been extremely flexible with her work arrangements, allowing her to work 30 hours a week in order to achieve a better work/life balance. Kudos to Morningstar!

Bing Yeo now lives in Boston, where he works in the supply chain strategy practice at IBM Business Consulting Services.

Tarcisio Ribeiro continues his successful career at Tellabs, where he was recently promoted to director of wireline segment marketing.

Grace Chang just moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to work for Intuit and says she is enjoying the warmer weather.

Dave Ramaswamy traveled to Europe (Brussels, Copenhagen, Bilbao, Sofia and Paris) last summer on a German Marshall Fellowship. On his return Dave decided to leave his position at Tribune Media Services to take a sabbatical. He moved to Merida, Venezuela, and has been perfecting his Spanish ever since. Dave will be returning to Chicago this summer and, as of yet, has no set plans.

Nicole (Smith) Merriam and husband Christophe Merriam welcomed son Christophe Randall Merriam on July 29, 2004, in San Jose, Calif. Nicole is now working for Equity Office Properties Trust, the nation's largest publicly held office building owner and manager. She is finance director for the San Jose region.

After graduation Jaideep Vivekanand joined Ibbotson Associates, a financial services firm in downtown Chicago that specializes in asset allocation, where he serves as manager of software development. Jaideep and his wife Anu also report they have launched an architectural services firm called Buildsoft Graphics, which is growing nicely and keeps them busy for most of their waking hours (and even many hours when they should be sleeping).

Lovely Thomas, husband Sebastian and son Tejus recently welcomed a baby girl to their family, Naomi Marie Thomas. Lovely currently resides in Batesville, Ind., where she works for the consulting firm Sogeti. Her current engagement has Lovely in Cincinnati with P&G's global marketing IT group.

Marty Smith is currently applying his Kellogg skills in the field of comprehensive financial planning for high-net-worth individuals and businesses. He is affiliated with Capital Point Financial Group Ltd., an independent firm in Glenview, Ill., that specializes in providing in-depth analysis of cash-flows and optimizing them with the use of nonproprietary financial products custom fit to clients' unique situations.

David Schroeder has been a busy man since completing his coursework at Kellogg. He's expanded his family (he, wife Katie and son Joshua welcomed daughter Anna in April 2002) and took an internal transfer to Equistar's Cincinnati, Ohio, facility. David worked for Equistar in quality assurance — with a fair bit of business and marketing exposure — but eventually purchased his own business. David now is applying the lessons he learned in Professor Steve Rogers' Entrepreneurial Finance course in leading his company, Baker-Rullman Manufacturing (baker-rullman.com). David says: "Ownership, to date, has given me more worries than assurances, but 2005 is shaping up to be a fair year. I'm working on implementing a couple of ideas and strategies that should make future years even more successful." So if you happen to be traveling through southeast Wisconsin, have a need for fabricated steel, storage bins or dehydration units, or if you just want to find out more about his business purchase experience, please don't hesitate to drop David a line.

Wolfgang Hirschburger returned to Germany in 2003, where he bought and renovated a house while working in the braking division of Bosch. In January Wolfgang moved to the United Kingdom, where he now serves as chief operating officer in one of the business units of the Bosch power tool division. He says that while the learning curve was quite steep, his time at Kellogg "helped (and still helps) greatly tackling the new challenge."

Doug Towsey reports all is well and that he recently began a new career as a certified financial adviser for Merrill Lynch.

Jennifer Anderson reports she left Kimberly-Clark, where she was a Kleenex-brand facial tissue brand manager. Jennifer is now working at the Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. in Columbus, Ohio, as a brand manager on Miracle-Gro Plant Foods. She reports she produced her first commercial for the company and had a great time doing it!

Our classmates Bill Huber and Michelle Joyce (Huber) married on April 24, 2004. Since then they moved to Philadelphia, only to be transferred back home to Chicago soon after! Michelle reports they are now officially "suburbanites" as they are in the process of building a house in Elmhurst, Ill. Both are enjoying their jobs — Bill as director of inventory and purchasing for McMaster-Carr Supply Co. and Michelle as director of dining solutions for Aramark's school support services division.

Winston Awadzi joined Sprint Corp.'s executive development program upon graduation. Winston's roles with the company so far include running the consumer sales channel in the Chicago/Indianapolis territory, serving as director of product development, creating and leading the business development organization for a $1 billion business unit (where he served as the division's director of business development and one of the nine lead team members and is currently serving as director of indirect sales channel management). On the home front, Winston is proud to report that his wife Carmin has now completed her coursework and will be a part of the Kellogg School TMP Class of 2005. Both Winston and Carmin are looking forward to spending more time together and with their four children.

Finally, On Feb. 5, my wife Peggy, son Jake and I welcomed identical twin boys, Patrick and Colin, to the McLaughlin Clan. Sleep remains elusive, but with an incredible family, great friends and a job I love (bringing in new clients for Aon Risk Services), I am yet to find a person I consider luckier than me.

Please keep the email updates coming and do not hesitate to call on me if there is ever anything I can do for you.

Cheers, Tiny McLaughlin