1992

	Steve Rappaport ’92 and Katerina Minarikova with new son Benjamin
	Shez Bandukwala ’92 with fiancée Natalie Marjancik
	Keith Westrum ’92
	Marco Pellegatti ’92 with family on his stepdaughter’s graduation day
	Al Grell ’92 and son

Bill Krueger was named vice chairman, Nissan Americas’ highest-ranking resident executive. Bill was formerly a SVP at Nissan Americas. He is now responsible for the day-to-day operations of Nissan Americas’ business and manages the day-to-day operational aspects of Nissan the Americas. He also serves on the committee of visitors for Vanderbilt University’s engineering school, and is a director of the Nashville branch of the Federal Reserve Bank, the American Red Cross’s Nashville-area chapter, the Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee and the Anchor Hocking Company. In addition, he is on the executive advisory council for the Automotive Women’s Alliance Foundation.

Sean Stover was hired as managing director in Boston for the transaction advisory group of Alvarez & Marsal.

Simone Frank and her husband Lewis welcomed another son, Casey Aaron Flax, on June 1. Big brother Jason is very excited about the expanded family. Simone writes that she is still vice president of finance and operations for New America Foundation, a public-policy think tank. She comments, “I can’t believe I will have been there a decade in July.”

Dmitry Paramonov can’t seem to shake his ethnic roots — he is now running Medtronic Russia, based in Moscow as of May. His family will join him in August. He reports that while Moscow is booming and quite an exciting, cosmopolitan city, he must forever pray that oil prices stay high. Mark Andersen has made threats to join him in soon.

Carter Cast and family just moved to Winnetka, Ill., from Omaha. Carter comments: “I’m working on a consulting project for Dean Blount on innovation at Kellogg. I really enjoy getting involved with Kellogg again. Allyson and I had a second son, Sam, in April and he’s a big happy fella (huge basketball-palming mitts). Hope to see classmates in the Chicago area now that we’re settling here.”

After stints for Ford in Brazil and Toronto, George Thornton moved to Chongquing, China (a small town home to 35 million people) in July.

Julia Cassidy Fitzgerald writes: “I’m still CMO for the toys, seasonal and outdoor living businesses for Kmart and Sears. I get to do the speaking circuit for toys and retail, social media, and entertainment licensing this year and I also spoke at a Kellogg channels class this summer.

“On the home front, we just bought another fixer upper — we refer to it as the ‘crack house’ because, well, it looks like one. It’s an ambitious project (read, what were we thinking?) but we enjoy the creative process. I’m a little less excited about the ant infestation, skunks under the garage and flock of mallard ducks that now live on the mini-lake that formed in the backyard with all of the rains. My eldest son is a high school junior, so we are visiting colleges nationwide, including Northwestern.”

Karen (Ofengand) Robertson writes, “I took on a new job about a year ago with BSR (Business for Social Responsibility), a global business member network focused on helping companies develop sustainable business strategies through consulting, research and cross-sector collaboration. I lead BSR’s advisory work with food, beverage and agriculture companies, including Kraft, McDonald’s, Pepsi and Walmart, and am really enjoying it.

“On a personal front, Larry ’91 and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary. Larry’s book A Deliberate Pause: Entrepreneurship and its Moment in Human Progress, won another award — the International Book Award in the leadership category. Our kids (grades 3 and 6) are busy with school and sports. I enjoy being a soccer mom off the field and on as I still play pick-up soccer when I can.”

After 11 years at Merrill Lynch, Chris Rhoades moved to Maine in 2003 with his wife and their three boys, Harrison (8), Griffin (7) and TJ (5). Chris was the CEO of a building-materials company for seven years that grew from 20 employees to 200 today. Chris merged the company, took a board seat and stock, and exited his role as CEO to pursue a new career in private equity. In April, he joined Sail Capital Partners in Orange County, Calif. Sail buys companies in the cleantech space (energy, water, agriculture, green innovation, etc.). Chris will be a partner in Sail’s Southern California office.

Rich Masterson and his wife Susan moved to Barbados in January with their children Bridget (15) and Brook (13) as Rich took up a new post as president and COO of Valeant International (Barbados) SRL. Rich will be in Barbados for two to three years while the family splits time between Barbados and Irvine, Calif.

After a decade out of the workforce, Gieriet Bowen finally decided to return. “Truthfully, I was ‘working’ as a mom of five kids, but not paid. I’ve been obsessed with Groupon (it’s like having Google in your backyard and NOT jumping in!) but I needed to revisit my resume, skill set, talents, etc. before getting serious about applying anywhere for a job. That’s where Beth Korn, my Kellogg career re-entry coach, came in! The coaching was fantastic. Along the coaching/job re-entry process, I stumbled upon a neat company called Plum District (actually, husband Ted found it.) And here I am!

“Plum District is the largest daily-deal site in America focusing on the mom market and funded by Kleiner Perkins. We are unique in that our deals are sourced for moms, by moms (‘district consultants,’ also known as local, involved moms who care about long-term local merchant sustainability and local causes: schools, churches, charities, etc., to grow subscriber awareness.) I’m the regional manager for Chicago and am having such fun growing the business! With the exception of the San Francisco home office, all Plum District employees work from home. My district consultants are fantastic people who have interesting backgrounds and, like most moms, want meaningful work but also would not like to sacrifice time at home. Plum District seems to have finally created that holy grail for moms! Check it out at plumdistrict.com.”

Tim Krein and family left Newport, R.I. (after a year at the Naval War College) and moved to Reston, Va. 18 months ago. Tim notes that the family is just a few miles from the Yorks, the Santoros and other classmates.

Albrecht “Call me Al” Grell hasn’t written in 19 years. He updates: “Upon graduation, I joined McKinsey and spent five years in Germany and India, where I enjoyed spending lots of time with fellow graduate Vinita Gupta. After McKinsey, I spent five years with Tchibo, Germany’s version of Starbucks, and moved on to start my own business in 2002. You might have guessed it: I sold it after five years, took some time off and then joined Germanischer Lloyd in Hamburg, Germany, one of the world’s leading technical services provider to the maritime, oil and gas and renewable energy industries (technical assurance, consulting, etc.). I did two years of strategy (Kellogg certainly gave me a solid base), M&A (buying 12 companies in two years) and post-merger integration. I now run our global maritime solutions business.”

I’m still in touch with Axel Wieandt. He writes: “I was married in 1996 and have two kids. Like all Germans, I am blessed with a ridiculous amount of vacation. I have spent over a year backpacking around the world, sailing, skiing, going to the beach, etc. In retrospect, Kellogg certainly was one of the big steps in life. Look forward to hearing from fellow alumni.”

Keith Westrum: “I’ve spent my three and a half years of extended sabbatical helping out family and friends, pheasant hunting, learning tennis, snowboarding and glass blowing. Not to mention, I also have been volunteering, leading hikes and mountaineering climbs, perfecting my mojito recipe, and traveling the U.S. and Asia. I have rejoined the ranks of the gainfully employed. I figured it was time. Besides, an idle mind tends toward, ahem, mayhem. Well, that and I was driving my friends crazy! So I nixed my ’stache and joined the Microsemi (MSCC) Power Products Group as director of strategic business development in Bend, Ore. Yes, this is electronics and they have their own silicon fab, so I didn’t make the move to consumer marketing. So if you ever need a silicon wafer, let me know. All the test wafers are just so many shiny frisbees.”

Marco Pellegatti came to the U.S. for his stepdaughter’s graduation (with honors) in industrial design from the Rochester Institute of Technology. He writes: “I’m the proudest stepdad. Now that she’s officially unemployed, if anyone needs a junior industrial designer with a wonderful portfolio and excellent multicultural teamwork skills, then she’s the girl. I also recently spoke with Hitoshi Ohta, who’s been traveling a lot between Japan and the U.S. Hitoshi is the CEO for GS Yuasa Battery’s U.S. division.” Marco is still with consulting firm Amana-Key in Sao Paulo.

As part of a $15 million investment by New World Ventures, class of ’92 VC-extraordinaire Matt McCall joined the board of Chicago-based SMS Assist.

Lee French is leading an effort with the Creative Corridors Committee to influence the highway design in the North Carolina Winston-Salem area. And I’m trying to help out if possible as well. But Lee is the main man. Lee is also president and CEO of Old Salem Museums and Gardens.

Paul Mistor and Mark Coleman had time to run the Keys 100-mile Run and win their age group (it was a six-person relay).  They write: “It started in Key Largo and ended in Key West where we finished with our van, limping in on a flat tire the last 20 miles.”

Steve Rappaport and Katerina Minarikova are excited to announce the birth of their son Benjamin in June. Steve writes: “I am considering changing the name of my company to LinkAmerika & Son or possibly LinkAmerika squared. Work-wise, we are busy increasing our domestic distribution through new salespeople and web initiatives and international distribution, with new clients in the U.K., Korea and Japan. My only complaint now is my brutal 50-minute commute to work (by mountain bike).” 

Gerard “Surfin’ Bean” Beenen just finished his second year as a management professor at CSU Fullerton and had a blast. He writes: “I teach intro O.B. to undergrads and organizational change, as well as leading teams for our MBA program. I’m also still teaching the organizational-change class to Carnegie Mellon MBAs this summer for the third year in a row. Recently my family and Charles Kwon’s family met up in Laguna Beach for dinner while they were visiting from Seattle.”

Al Weggeman, Scott Allan, Jamie Crouthamel, Barry Fougere, Kevin Lee, and Charles Meyers had their annual golf outing in La Jolla. The group writes: “We missed Greg Santoro and Sean Conlin this year, but they will return on next year’s circuit. Kudos to Charles for hooking us up with an unbelievably nice beach house. We played Torrey Pines South Course and some other great venues. This has become a tradition we all look forward to each year!”

Annual ’92 golf outing, pictured: Al Weggeman, Scott Allan, Jamie Crouthamel, Barry Fougere, Kevin Lee and Charles Meyers, all ’92