EMP-63

Anand and Geetha Subramanian announced the birth of their son Kiran Christopher on May 17. Although he was more than three weeks early, he weighed in at 6 pounds, 7 ounces and was 19.25 inches long. The name Kiran is an Indian Sanskrit word meaning "ray of light." Congratulations!

	Anand Subramanian EMP-63 and his son Kiran Christopher
	Chris Bernauer EMP-63 and his wife Jeanette
	Gustavo Coronel EMP-63, his wife, and son Mateo
	Peter EMP-63, Marta, and Ben Granat
	Roger Gregory and Brian Tilley, both EMP-63, on the summit of Mount Rainer with Mount Adams in the background
	Kim Jude EMP-63 and husband Craig in Napa
	Sandeep Laroia EMP-63 and family on vacation
	Eishin Takahashi and Rodney Myers, both EMP-63
	Pradep Nair EMP-63 and his family in the Middle East
	James Park (second from left), Ann-Marie Peluso (second from right), both EMP-63, and friends in San Francisco
	Ann-Marie Peluso and Wiener Mondesir, both EMP-63, with friend Flavio Vietti
	Rodney Mayers and Polo Quintano, both EMP-63, in England
	Alexander "Sasha" Vaisblat EMP-63

Mikenzie (Steffens) Sari joined Ally Bank in Charlotte as director of human resources for several of their divisions. This emerging role will allow Mikenzie to leverage the deep knowledge that she gained in prior roles as well as her time herding EMP-63 members from problems they are creating. Many would be interested to know that the company's new CEO, Al de Molina, spoke to EMP-63 when Mikenzie was at Kellogg. The experience left such an impression on him that he waited three years to hire her. As a programming note, continuing to send Mikenzie your "friend's resume" is moot. She knows the guy. He is the same guy who asked about his friend's two-year payback obligation for Kellogg tuition.

Marc Womack accepted a new job with Hyundai Motor Finance Corporation as the director and department head of marketing. This role is the chief marketing officer for the manufacturer's captive with overall responsibility for all finance company-related marketing activities. He will also own all of the Hyundai B2B and B2C financial products (dealer inventory financing, real estate, consumer promotions).For the first 18 months, he is commuting between Dallas and Irvine, Calif. Marc would also like to say a big THANK YOU to all of his Kellogg brothers and sisters that have counseled, recommended, supported, vouched for, opened doors and provided advice to him during his search. You have all been an incredible help and he sincerely appreciates it.

We in EMP-63 would like to congratulate Marc and take a moment to reflect on a guy his size commuting back and forth to California. However, that is not nearly as much fun as simply picturing Marc trying out anything in his product line. Marc's first marketing suggestion would be "how about something that when I drive it, there is room for someone to sit in the seat behind me." The only time his product line was a worse physical fit was when he worked for Baby Gap.

Pradep Nair spent time this spring in Dubai and did a desert safari. Interestingly, Pradep did not originally set out to do a desert safari. His trip was originally scheduled as "let's see how far we can get on a half-tank of gas out there." The rest is history.

Eishin Takahashi in February attended a conference in San Francisco. He had the opportunity to go out for a nice dinner with Rodney Mayers. This dinner was just the two of them since James Park was away, and Weiner Mondesir also was unable to come out, because he didn't want to. Eishin reports that "the conference was empty, reflecting the current market." Ann-Marie Peluso held up her trip to San Francisco until Eishin had left. This makes the answer to "how many people can avoid Eishin in San Francisco?" apparently three classmates and 200 conference attendees.

Rosemary McGillicuty has entered the world of social networking. She did lose the competition between herself, Ashton Kutcher and CNN to sign up 1 million followers on Twitter, but she was able to get well over six followers — two of whom have access to the Internet. She opened her Facebook page and connected to the EMP-63 location. Rosemary regularly updates "what's on your mind?" section with "nothing, literally." Rosemary regularly blogs her insights on spending, bailouts, forced resignations and undeserved bonuses. And that is just the section about her husband Dimitri!

Bill Dirkes celebrated a significant birthday (and he refuses to state which one) by vacationing with Marifran in the British Virgin Islands on a sail boat. They were accompanied by two other couples (close friends, which is important when captive on a boat) and joined by a captain and chef on the 47-foot catamarran. Five days of sailing, snorkeling and eating were a great way to celebrate and relax. They highly recommend the trip to fellow EMPers. Rumor is that the significant birthday was "63" and he felt strongly about it out of nostalgia for Kellogg days appear to be incorrect. And AARP cards are not the same as birthday cards, so stop sending them.

Rodney Mayers caught up with Polo Quintano and his wife in London on Rodney's family spring break trip to the U.K. Unfortunately, the U.K. was closed for spring break. Instead they went around various film studios and put themselves in front of blue screens with Big Ben, the tower of London, and Buckingham palace. Rodney has been appointed chief operating officer at Adify. In this role, Rodney updates his daily blog, "Rodney tells you how it ought to be" and then uses the Adify process to create a media network for brand advertisers. Rodney's favorite postings involve "why your holiday lights should be down by now" and "if you knew what to do, I wouldn't need a Web site." Of course, none of this job description is true. But Rodney did not provide a description of the role, and so, you know, we made up what we thought would be really cool and funny.

Mikenzie (Steffens) Sari, Jason Allen, Chris Bernauer, and Jon Pace EMP-64 caught up for dinner and drinks at Roosters, a fun Southern restaurant. That this group felt that they had to explain that Roosters of Charlotte was a fun Southern restaurant as opposed to the local coq au vin kitchen is a bit of a surprise. This information was augmented with the feedback that the current score is: Motorcycles Bernauer sold to his local crowd — 0, husbands who created stories about how they "need one to save the environment" — 3.

Ronnie Razmi is the associate director in the life sciences practice at Navigant Consulting. He is still living in New York City and sees Abdo Abdo once in a while and says that is about it. This is a great opportunity to see Ronnie in a totally different way than at Kellogg, taking a position of prominence on the topic of life sciences and hanging out with Abdo. Totally different.

Abdo Abdo and Ronnie Razmi continue their quest to break into the New York nightlife inner circle — in perpetual pursuit of the perfect place to be seen. Abdo has also been traveling to Europe on business for IBM quite a bit . He spent three weeks in April in Prague, Stockholm and Warsaw. Istanbul and Johannesburg are in the works. This largely results from requests from the local officials of Prague, Stockholm and Warsaw.

Jason Allen has provided his "update" for fellow Team A Member, Nikolaj Sjoqvist. Nikolaj now owns a Harley. Jason also claims Nikolaj has begun wearing "full battle regalia" for his new motorcycle quests, and implied Nikolaj got "one-day tattoos" on both arms and is wearing button-downs with the sleeves cut off. Nikolaj reports that if Jason understood pricing strategy, he would understand the decision trees that Nikolaj uses in client presentations are augmented by "ink." Additional feedback from Nikolaj is, "I have no idea what Jason is talking about, excluding the Harley…"

Steve Azzarello and family continue to jetset. The family got some much-needed and well-deserved R&R in Scottsdale, and then also vacationed in Turks and Caicos and Florida. Steve took the time to rest and recreate after the shock of his name spelling in the last Kellogg World, which was a naughty word or draught animal, followed by "arello." Only all that time in Turks and Caicos could salve the wound this gave Steve.

Chris Bernauer and Jeannette Bernauer got away for a long weekend in March with friends to Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands without kids. Meanwhile the Bernauer children report that they can conclusively prove that chocolate cake for breakfast is healthy: There are eggs in there! Also, if you have candy and soda before noon, it does not make you too sick to play outside, as mom and dad had often claimed. They look forward to mom and dad's next vacation!

Beth Eckenrode checked in to let us know she has absolutely nothing new to report — and is quite happy about that. This is Beth's actual update. Those of us who prepare the EMP-63 Kellogg World update would like you to know that we are a little sad that an opportunity to talk about the products of Beth's employer did not come up. In these difficult times, even funny food jokes are in short supply. However, leading comedy economists predict a turnaround during the year, so we will all keep our fingers crossed.

Andrew Gillen said he had nothing new to report — but with all the business in Washington, D.C,. these days, Ann-Marie is now convinced Andrew must be leading a double life. Those in Team C with Andrew know that we are not allowed to confirm or deny Andrew's double life as we have all been sworn to secrecy. We learned that in late April, Andrew spoke at the Illinois county treasurers convention in Springfield about trends in the payment card market.

Kim Jude and Craig Jude traveled to Napa, Calif., for vacation. They had a great time dining at Terra (Kim's favorite), touring the Spring Hill wineries and identifying their new favorite cabernet. Kim continues to be inspired by the passion smaller wineries have for their brands and enjoyed meeting the founder at Sherwin Family Vineyards. Craig reports that when this was first stated, it sounded a bit more like "I'm snow tired by the fashion taller wineries have for their fans and enjoyed beating the flounder at Sherwin Williams." Either way, the trip was inspirational.

Distraught by the baseless accusation that he stole Kinesh's pipeline, Sandeep Laroia has relocated to India. He further reports that there was nothing in the pipeline anyway. And those who complain that Sandeep has not been returning phone calls or e-mails must understand that he has been busy fixing borders and shading on the Excel workbooks generated by his project team. Sandeep relocated to New Delhi in June to join the new 19th office of ZS Associates. If the accusations leveled against him by his EMP-63 classmates subside, he will return to the U.S. in two or three years. Sandeep had to cut short this update as he received a fresh set of Excel workbooks to fix. Sandeep also provided a picture with his family to squash the rumors that once and for all he is not in hiding. Andrew Gillen denies Sandeep is leading a double life, and would not be allowed to say if he was anyhow (see Andrew's update).

Peter Granat has been working like crazy during the last few months. He has been travelling a ton in Europe the last two months and building his new team. It took a lot of planning to avoid Abdo Abdo, but Peter pulled it off. He has divested two businesses (Denmark and part of Sweden/Norway) since he joined in January and is in the middle of a tough restructuring process in the U.K. and Germany. The Nordic decisions were in no way based on his experiences with Nikolaj and Hans, but instead the true market realities. On the personal front, his family is finally settled and enjoying London. Charlie (dog) just arrived in London after six months of quarantine and now the whole family is back together. Unfortunately, in these tough times, a restructure was necessary in the family, and Charlie was outsourced for a hamster and given two weeks severance.

Ann-Marie Peluso visited San Francisco in mid-February and caught up with Wiener Mondesir at Ozumu and met James Park for cocktails at the Clift Hotel. Rodney caught the flu (regular, not swine), and missed out, after having done all the work to pick out the restaurant and make reservations.

In late February through mid-March, Ann-Marie traveled to South America for three weeks, including to Patagonia, Chile's lake region and Buenos Aires. After three days of travel, including trekking over the Andes Mountains, she arrived in Pucon, Chile. While shocking to report, Ann-Marie confessed to not wearing stilettos for an entire two weeks. (Yes — hell has frozen over.) But, of course, she quickly returned to city-slicker form once back in Buenos Aires. She sharply denies the rumors that she never left home and simply got confused about what had happened because she watched the move "Che" while on cold medicine. Sharply denies.

Ann-Marie continues to teach fitness classes in Chicago with great fervor. She now teaches bootcamp, plyometrics power hour, 6-pack attack, cardio kickboxing, aqua-aerobics, RBT/ BOSU training, complete body conditioning, cardio sculpting and muscle max barbell weight training classes. Classmates no longer call Ann-Marie when in Chicago ever since James scared everyone off after taking one of her classes. As promised during orientation weekend some five years ago, Paul Del Gallo is willing to collect people for scotch and cigars to watch people exercise.

Michele Azar and her family had a fun-filled, adventure-packed trip to Switzerland. One of the most memorable experiences was sledding in the Alps; the Swiss take their sledding very seriously. Once home from Switzerland, Michele turned around and flew to New York to participate in the 2009 Ad Age Digital Conference opening panel discussion moderated by Pete Blackshaw, EVP of digital strategic services at Nielsen Online (adage.com/digital2009/speakers.php). The panel addressed "How Technology Changes Your Company, Inside and Out" for Best Buy, Pizza Hut, and Delta.com brands. In May, Michele provided a keynote address at the Computer & Technology Law Section Annual Meeting and CLE. The multimedia talk provided a perspective on how social technology and open approaches are transforming the way clients and law firms do business. A question-and-answer session following the keynote included Best Buy leaders from the legal, IT and HR departments (mnbar.org/sections/computer_law/05-12-09_to%20be%20approved.html). Once again, Michele gets top billing for most traveled, most links and most exhausting lifestyle. Rumors that she is going to run marathons between cities as opposed to flying are exaggerated, but possible.

Sujit Bakre was selected as a member of the board of directors for nonprofit organization The Bridge (bridgeyouth.org). He attended his first board meeting in January and also serves on the finance committee. He had been seeking to serve on a nonprofit board for a while and looks forward to working with The Bridge. The Bridge is a human services agency that provides counseling and therapy, crisis intervention, parent education, substance abuse counseling and mentoring to youths and families. The Bridge is located in Palatine, Ill. and serves six neighboring townships at the moment. It also works with other counseling agencies in the Chicagoland area. In April, Sujit and Swatti participated in a Bridge fundraiser dinner event called "The Essence of Tuscany" at the Meadows Club. All of us recall Swatti's study of psychology and claims the rumors that she hypnotized Sujit into believing he was at the Essence of Tuscany dinner when he was actually home watching the kids are unfounded and mean-spirited.

Brian Beeler has been working very hard and tries to keep up with his kids. The oldest loves Bugs Bunny and thinks whacking Brian over the head with toys (the way Bugs Bunny does to dudes in his show) is hilarious. This is Brian's actual update. We at "The World" would like to point out that if this was not Brian's update, we might have made it up. We do know that Brian's versions of lullabies are basically '80s Indiana rock combined with the complete George Jones collection.

Gustavo Coronel and his family spent a great time in Italy and the U.K. for spring break. Mateo (his son) was fascinated with the Roman Colosseum. Monica (his wife) enjoyed the great views of Montepulciano, Florence and Windsor Castle. Gustavo, as always, kept testing the wines in Italy and the superb beers in London. Stops in the U.K. did not involve, apparently, visiting Polo, Peter or Charlie the dog. All three expressed relief.

Alexander "Sasha" Vaisblat reports: "After more than two years in digital aggregation business with Warner Music, Sony and Access Industries as CEO, we sold the company to a leading Russian private equity fund with interest in Internet investments. After weighing the pros and cons and having received a financially juicy offer, I accepted the Group CEO responsibility from MTech Communications Plc, a Nigerian-based technology company with interests in mobile communications and M&A in building television and radio networks in Africa.

"The company has a pan-African interest and I spend my life travelling between West Africa (Nigeria and Ghana) and East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda) with the expansion plan until the end of the year to enter at least four to five more African countries. The company has completed private placement and been introduced to the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The life is far from being easy here, but well, there are spots on this planet being untouched by the global meltdown." Sasha also extends his invitation to each of his classmates to visit in Lagos. We have mentioned to Sasha that this was an unusual way to extend that offer to come to Lagos, pointing out how hard life is there. He pointed out that he works in television and knows what the U.S. economy looks like right now and feels we should not be pointing fingers. This is an exciting time for Sasha!

In May, Brian Tilley and Roger Gregory climbed 9,000 vertical feet to the summit of Mount Rainier. Prior to summit day, they spent three days acclimating, training and ice climbing at Camp Muir base camp. Their training included climbing as a rope team, crevasse rescue, self and team arrest, glacier safety and avalanche rescue. After two days of subzero temperatures and 20-plus mph winds gave way to better weather, Brian, Roger and the rest of the climbing team left base camp at 4 a.m. for the nine-hour round-trip climb and descent of the summit. In total, they spent five days living and climbing on the glaciers and snowfields of Mount Rainier. They are now preparing for their next climb. This activity was all apparently in preparation for a new business venture Brian is considering. The process involves convincing normal people to climb ridiculously high altitudes and, while oxygen-deprived, getting in a few quick hands of high-stakes poker. Congratulations to Brian and Roger for this amazing feat!