1986

	William Kotas ‘86 and his bride Erika

Ron Leaf reported from Minneapolis that his youngest daughter, Jessica, has decided to attend the University of Wisconsin at Madison. In spite of purple being her favorite color, and her mother's opinion that the University of Minnesota would be just fine and a lot closer, it appears that she will be joined by many of her school friends. Ron and Mary's oldest daughter, Alison, will be staying in Ithaca this summer to work in a lab at Cornell. I have offered Ron the services of John Bauman '85 and myself to make sure that Jessica is not found in any State Street bars until she reaches 21.

Lori Collins has been traveling far and wide in retirement. Her most interesting trip was spending a month in Casablanca on a consulting project for an American school there called George Washington Academy (K-12). She had a blast speaking French, helping them figure out their operations and growth strategy and hearing stories from the teachers and staff about all the places they had lived. "The school is growing from 600 kids to 1,000, " she says, "and I got to watch the high school being built right across from my apartment." She did the mandatory visit to Rick's CafŽ and let me know that Sam had retired but the music is still fun and lively. She really enjoyed her view of the Atlantic Ocean.

Nikki Pope is keeping very active in the Bay Area. She has not noticed any "economic turndown" effect in her billable hours. And, of special interest to Cyndi Bigelow, she reports: "I've become addicted to Ginger Snappish Bigelow Tea. You know, since I left Kellogg, every company I've worked at (sadly, too many to list) have Bigelow Tea in the kitchen. They've got some salesforce because it doesn't matter how big or small the company or how far afield it is from Connecticut." One really good thing happened that has happened for Nikki is the Northern California Innocence Project, of which she is a board member, held its first major fundraiser on March 27. They raised $1 million. She knows that's not a lot to the free-wheeling, high-flyers of the Class of 1986, but it means they can hire more staff attorneys to fight to get more innocent people out of prison. Who says lawyers are sharks without hearts? Nikki suggested that I join the computer age and get LinkedIn. I will consider it. She has been pinged recently by Ken Danieli and Gene "Good Ol' Boy" Kamarasy.

Thanks to Nikki Pope and tens of millions of others, Bigelow Tea just finished a record year. They have taken the No. 1 position in the specialty tea category for the last 16 months. Cyndi is also very excited to tell us that Shaun Holliday is now on the board of directors. Outside of business, she sees Tim Mendola a fair amount with his wife, Kristen. Her family is doing very well, and like many of you, she knows she's getting older (and better) when both of her "babies" are in high school and Meghan is starting to look at colleges.

William Kotas married ƒrika Vanessa Geraldes Lopes Campos in a civil ceremony in the Brazilian beach town of Ubatuba on March 14. Friends flew in from the Americas and Europe. Willy confirmed that the band and waiters at the reception began to out-drink the guests so the quality of the music declined and the number of accidents involving plates increased as the night zig-zagged on. I should have attended and helped keep things in balance. He added a few more comments: "When you wait until you are 49 to get married (as I did), it seems like a rational idea to make it a double or nothing bet so we are going to have a second reception in my hometown in Ohio in late July. ƒrika was born Aug. 8, 1986 so I am one lucky dude to have a smart, loving wife that can push my wheelchair in the 2030's." Willy has been managing Towers Perrin's employee survey practice in Latin America for the last four years. ƒrika is a university student and model from Mato Grosso.

I have been busy teaching at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. I have been there longer than I worked at Miller Brewing. I am also on the board of directors for a retirement community near Milwaukee. We are having trouble filling the independent living part of the building. I'll work on a taskforce during the next six months to determine if the building has physical shortcomings or if this country has a shortage of old people. I was able to get attendance increased at the opera with some out-of-the-box ideas, so I am sure I can corral enough people to fill the building. I plan to spend more time this summer playing bad golf. If I play enough, I hope to improve from bad golf to mediocre golf. I will play in John Bauman's golf outing in June and will get in a round or two with Lauren Schreiner. Sorry this column is so short. Please feel free to send me updates at anytime. You don't need to wait for my reminders. Enjoy your summer!