EMP-63

	Karla and Alphonso Cantalapiedra EMP-63 and their baby Marco
	Kevin McShane and Jason Childers, both EMP-63, at Notre Dame
	Pradeep Nair EMP-63 in Paris with his family
	Ann Marie Peluso EMP-63 helps a shop open up.
	Eishin Takahashi and James Park, both EMP-63, in Seoul
	Sasha Vaisblat and Safak Guven, both EMP-63, at Club Med Turkey
	Russell Walker EMP-64, Safak Guven EMP-63 and Bernadette Birt in Turkey

In mid-April Vikas Aditya was in Chicago and tried to meet Yan Chang for dinner, but Chicago traffic got the better of him. So they ended up having a "phone date." Gustavo Coronel immediately called and explained that to catch up with each other on the phone, it is not actually necessary to fly to the town the other person is in. That's sort of like yelling into the cell phone real loud because it's long distance.

Jason Allen is gearing up to move the family from Texas to Charlotte, N.C., as he will now be taking charge of his company's wind turbine fleet. This increases the EMP-63 Charlotte contingency by 50 percent. This is a great opportunity for Jason to move into wind turbine fleet, which his employer has explained does not mean he gets a bunch of sailing boats. It's a different thing.

The Houston group (Roger Gregory, Sumit Mathur, Nikolaj Sjoqvist and Jason Allen) got together for dinner at Jason's house in April. Likely for the last time as the Allens are leaving for N.C. and Nikolaj is moving to Atlanta. This was really exciting for Roger, who thought he was now a finalist on an elimination-style competition EMP-63 Houston Idol. Russell Hayworth volunteered to serve as a Simon Cowell. However, it turns out this is not that type of thing. We have several nominees for the other judges and have decided not to provide them. A good time was had by all.

Gustavo Coronel has been appointed to the board of directors of University of Florida's Leadership Development Institute (LDI). Gustavo's deep understanding of Latin America and South Asia will help University of Florida-LDI expand its programs to these markets. Gustavo still will cheer for the Wildcats but with an eye on the Gators! This will be a great opportunity for Gustavo to reject applications for Executive PhDs at the University of Florida from EMP-63 alumni.

During the Kellogg reunion in May, Brian Beeler, Ann Marie Peluso, Sujit Bakre, Russell Walker (EMP-64) and wife Anna met for dinner at The Stained Glass in Evanston. This surprised everyone because Sujit actually showed, which improved his "committed to showing" batting average to 15 percent. A good time was had by all and we continue to be the Reunion masters, even at ones we were not invited to. We will be crashing Harvard's reunion in three weeks. Bring your "You're No. 5" pins.

On April 19, Jason Childers made the trip to Notre Dame to watch classmate Kevin McShane relive his undergrad days at the annual Blue and Gold Spring Football Festival. Kevin was the star of the annual alumni flag football game played just before the varsity scrimmage. "Crazy Legs" McShane demonstrated the glacial speed and the elephantine leaping ability that made him a valuable cheerleader during Notre Dame's 1988 National Championship run. Kevin's talent was so intense, that his hamstring stretched beneath the pull of his immense talent after only two series. It's just as well, though. The former NFL players on the field needed their time to shine. Alas, without McShane on the field to lead the charge, Kevin's Blue team fell to the Gold in a titan struggle. In any event, Kevin, Jason and the rest of the McShane family (Kate, Jack, Mora and Peter) had a wonderful day of football, tall tales of gridiron glory and reminiscing about the good ole days at the Allen Center.

Beth Eckenrode's son, Baxter, received his first communion in May. This is of course great news, but leaves us in a fix to add humor, since it is Baxter and of course a solemn event. We would point out that the celebration dinner was fantastic. Ore Ida French Fries with Bagel Bites, all dripping in ketchup, was a delight for all. This was followed by TGI Fridays make-in-the-microwave covered in Jack Daniel's marinades. By the way, we are not done with this whole Heinz thing yet. Sincere congratulations to Baxter though!

Chris Brogan will be consulting with the state of Kansas, helping them award four gaming contracts around the state. In related news, David Seemater, Rosemary McGillicutty, Paul Del Gallo and Marc Womack would all like to announce they have entered into the gaming business in Kansas. What? Look, you can get all David Messick on us or just let us make a living. Nobody asked you. Oh all right. Spoil sports.

In March Safak Guven, Bernie Birt, Russell Walker EMP-64 and Kellogg faculty members led the first-ever EMP GIM trip to Istanbul and Dubai with 18 adventurous students. While there the group met up with Safak, who made arrangements for a presentation and meeting with the corporate law firm and healthcare authorities in Istanbul. This went well and the students who took part remarked at the "pleased attitude" displayed by the dignitaries with whom they met. Some surprise was registered when the law group referred to Safak as "their best customer" but said none of it was healthcare work. They mentioned a Louisiana driving license and an impression that "faster is always better." Some of this may have been a translation issue, but we don't know for sure.

Safak met Sasha Vaisblat in Andayla, Turkey, vacationing. This is a real treat as usually folks have to go to Russia to see Sasha, which three of us have done. This remains the most important Kellogg EMP-63 connection: No matter where you go in the world, someone's always going to buy a round. We hear it was Safak this time. He had a tab.

Safak moved to Las Vegas at the end of April. This would on the surface appear to be a dangerous move. However, when you get below the surface it seems like just a genuinely dangerous idea. The Dallas W called the Vegas W and explained the 2007 Super Bowl, and other related events. Then they called the Reno 911 sheriff unit and attempts to block were made. In related news Chris Brogan moved from Vegas a while ago, and now says he will not be going back without bail money, a fake ID and an alibi.

Clem Johnson had dinner with Anand Subramanian in New York City in April while traveling on business. This is code for "Clem dreamed up an excuse to drink with Anand and tell the family 'I'm out on business.'" No golf was played, but golf was dreamed of.

Kim Jude is auditing the Entrepreneurial Finance class with Paul Del Gallo and Ann Marie Peluso. After class in April, the trio lingered in the Allen Center. After several bottles of wine, they proceeded to call and harass classmates late into the night. Return phone calls to A.M.P. in the days following were met with surprise as she had no memory of making the calls in the first place. This included a callback from "liquor by delivery," "Dancing With The Stars tryout line" and 45 calls to vote for both Davids on American Idol.

Rosemary McGullicutty has decided to go into the real estate brokering business. Rosemary's value-add proposition: price points send a message! She is going into the Detroit, Southern California and Miami markets with the play that can't lose: 10 percent commission and top-quality strategy. This includes taking only buyers with extra financing available, and for every dollar they offer below the asking price she counters with two dollars above. Buyers must bid on all homes "as is" and can only look at the homes from the curb to reduce cleanup time.

Kevin McShane joined the management team at a new marketing services provider by the name of Entiera. The company was founded by the two partners at Accenture who led the firm's CRM practice. Entiera has built its own marketing application across campaign management and analytics within an open source DBM environment. The Software as a Service (SaaS) model offers marketers a rapid deployment at a lower cost of ownership which will be disruptive in the market compared to the traditional mainframe-oriented service bureaus. The company is privately held, currently hosts up to 100 marketing databases and has a global reach with a European operation. This was great news for Kevin, who frequents the International House of Pancakes.

For the past few years, Kevin became more interested in online analytics. The next- generation marketing service providers who will become category leaders will be the firms who have deep expertise in the online space and the ability to deliver real-time content across channels. Kevin is looking forward to helping the Entiera team exploit this market opportunity. His role at Entiera as senior vice president is to lead organizational strategy and resources across the three customer life-cycle stages: sales, on-boarding and account management.

Pradeep Nair and family vacationed in Paris, where they visited Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Luxembourg Garden, Notre Dame Cathedral, Versailles and lots and lots of museums.

James Park and Eishen Takahashi met up in Seoul in late March. This continues another strong EMP-63 trend: not just catching up with your classmates, but catching up outside the United States.

Ron Razmi had his first official party in his Tribeca apartment in March — Ann Marie Peluso and Abdo Abdo attended. By party we mean two people were willing to come over if he had someone clean the place and agreed to not have some supermodel knock-off around.

Ronnie also was in Chicago the first two weeks of May for training with McKinsey. Friday night, Ronnie, Ann Marie Peluso and Sujit Bakre introduced the McKinsey contingency to Moda and danced the night away. In an interesting side note we have word that McKinsey recently doubled its orders for newly minted University of Chicago and Wharton recruits. They have dubbed it the Kellogg Dancing Effect.

Hans Van Wees hosted a terrific end-of-season ski weekend get-together in early April at the Von Trapp Resort in Stowe, Vt. Brian Tilley and Ken Sandifer met up with Hans to check out cross-country and downhill skiing, have an ad hoc wine tasting and sample some freshly made Vermont maple syrup.  While they couldn't quite get their heads around how manufacturing and selling maple syrup is economically feasible, they enjoyed eating it nonetheless. Ken, who had never skiied prior to this visit, talked far less smack than normal for fear of major embarrassment. Tilley, who kept insisting that he be called Picaboo, was a madly proficient skier. As expected, Hans was the classy host we all have known him to be. A terrific weekend for all!

Seiji Shinozaki and Brian Beeler met up at Kellogg one Thursday night to reminisce. They bar-hopped and ended up at Nevins with EMP-70 "studying" into the wee hours of the night. That is, until some of the wait staff compared them to some pictures they had behind the counter with a "do not serve" label. We're not saying it was them but one picture was of a bald lawyer looking over the top of his glasses and muttering "you know I'm the alpha dog here."

Anand Subramanian, Ron Razmi, Russell Hayworth and Abdo Abdo met out in Chelsea at a rooftop bar to catch up in mid-April. We have received six, count them six, versions of this event. Please note only four people attended. The general theme seems to be we love getting together.

Eishin Takahashi is clocking in at 180,000 miles per year traveling the globe. No matter how far he travels he still cannot escape James Park! We all thought it was really cool to see Eishin's technology in use in China. We all kind of skipped the fact that to have your stuff all over the globe you have to fly there to sell it.

The Chicago EMP-63 supper club resumed their monthly dinners upon Ann Marie Peluso's return to the Windy City in late March. The homecoming dinner included Kim Jude, Sujit Bakre and Greer O'Brian at Mon Ami Gabi in Oakbrook. Greer was the only one who knew what Mon Ami meant, although Sujit guessed it was a type of dessert.

Prior to her Chicago return, Ann Marie Peluso took a two-week vacation to Argentina and Uruguay in February and visited Patagonia, Punta del Este and Buenos Aires. The consummate shoe-connoisseur, she was nearly arrested in San Telmo because they thought she was trying to rob a shoe store. In fact, she was trying to get the shop owners to re-open during siesta in her quest to acquire Tango shoes. Despite her best efforts, she was unsuccessful.

After the first six months of head-down-and hard-work at SC Johnson, there is good news to report: Julian Wiles and family is adapting to Canadian life. Julian's wife is actively involved in the American Women's Club in the city where they live (Oakville, Ontario) and now they have almost forgotten about their former life in Racine, Wis. The girls are also enjoying their new Christian school. This is an update so wholesome we can't spoil it. We would point out that Julian has a friend who is two years out of Kellogg now.

Bill Dirkes and his wife, Maryfran, caught up with Paul for lunch in Boston. They were in town for a conference. Paul offered to take them on "The Departed—Irish Mobs of Boston Tour." They demurred for personal safety and instead lunch was had at O Sushi instead. Next time.

Hari Vallupalli has been accepted into the Advanced Management Development Program in Real Estate at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. This is a two-year program with multiple live-in weeks at Harvard for those who are in the real estate arena for 15 years or more. This of course adds to Hari's undergraduate and master's degrees in computer science and his Kellogg MBA. It will be a critical part of Hari's ability to execute on his current real estate development work. Unfortunately for Hari, we are all refusing to help him as he is now becoming a Harvard man. Like most Harvard men, Hari didn't notice or care how we feel.

Russell Hayworth has decided that life is too boring to go slow. He's accepted a position as head of corporate development in Asia for the newly formed Thomson Reuters. In September they will move to Hong Kong. Russell is moving next to Dragon I and Ronnie is hiding in his furniture hoping to move there.

Alphonso Cantalapiedra's wife, Karla, gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Marco Alfonso, on April 8. It was a very smooth natural birth. The baby was born two hours after they arrived at the hospital and labor took 15 minutes! Both mom and son were in great health. Marco is a great kid and they are both thrilled. Alfonso is even more thrilled that Karla no longer wakes him up for the early morning feedings! Following in daddy's footsteps, Marco Alfonso attended his first Sunday afternoon South Beach soiree at three weeks of age! Some say irresponsible, Alfonso said it had to be done!

Roger Gregory and Paul Del Gallo got together in Boston for dinner at the Union Oyster House. The Union is the oldest restaurant in the United States. Roger really enjoyed the meal, plus it was great for him to remember his favorite restaurant in Boston. He was there on opening day.