1997

	’97 ladies Millie Gong, Benita White, Joellen McGruder, Judy Hayes and Sue Buydens Penchina enjoy catching up over dinner

Warren Bright was appointed CEO of APN News and Media’s Australian Regional Media business. The ARM business is one of Australia’s largest media businesses, operating more than 14 daily newspapers, 70 weekly papers and more than 25 websites and a number of other publications. The change means yet another move for Gillian and the kids, this time to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland.

Joellen McGruder took a circuitous route but, just as she described in her Kellogg application essay, she finally has returned to her true love — the nonprofit sector. After seven great years at Chevron, four years getting her CPA license, and two sleep-deprived years as the chief finance executive at a startup, she landed the perfect job for her: director of finance at Eastside College Preparatory School in East Palo Alto, Calif.

In addition to her interesting, challenging and fun role managing the finance, HR and operations functions at the school, Joellen spends time getting to know the students and tutoring them. Like the student population of ECPS, Joellen is the first in her family to go to college, and she enjoys being a resource and reinforcing the message that they can achieve great things if they work hard, believe, and don’t ever give up. To date, 100 percent of ECPS’s 12 graduating classes have gone on to a four-year college (eastside.org). This job also allows Joellen a work-life balance that she hasn’t had since business school. She has resumed playing golf, and taking vacations without being tethered to the phone.

Joellen adds that she regularly sees Benita White, Judy Hayes, Millie Gong and Sue Buydens Penchina and loved hanging out with Kristin Johnson Doherty and her family when they were in town earlier this year. She is looking forward to traveling to see old friends around the globe over the next year (watch out Michael Payne, she is going to take you up on your offer to visit your family in The Hague). Joellen misses and sends love to her Section 64 girls, and thinks often of the many classmates who made her Kellogg experience such a wonderfully memorable one.

Jonathan Weatherly is working on a second entrepreneurial healthcare venture. His first venture related to remote patient monitoring folded recently, so not learning his lesson he is at it again with a new lab-testing venture, Pinpoint MD. On a random note, Jonathan nominated Philip Sheridan ’96 for the Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award from the Kellogg Levy Institute, and Philip won! Jonathan helped Philip put together a business plan for MobileCARE Foundation in 1999, a mobile asthma clinic that treats kids at Chicago school sites. MobileCARE was the subject of a recent Kellogg case study. And on a personal note, it’s scary to report that Jonathan’s first daughter Madison (14), who was born while he was at Kellogg, begins high school next year at Northside Prep in Chicago. Two other kids, Mackenzie (11) and Chase (5), round out the team, and he celebrates his 19th anniversary with Lisa in June.

Monica Gessner caught up with a few Kellogg classmates when she visited San Francisco and Buffalo in July with her family. Monica currently lives in Sydney, Australia, with her Australian husband, Joseph Arena, and beautiful daughter Katherine (2). This will be Katherine’s first big international trip and first visit to the U.S. Monica is enjoying the balance of working part-time at a small but lead organization in online market research, Australia Online Research, with days off to nurture her relationship with her daughter. Monica sends a hearty hello to all her friends back home and invites anyone planning on passing through Sydney to contact her at monica.gessner@gmail.com

John Ganz joined the business and commercial litigation group of Dykema, a 400-lawyer law firm in Detroit. John is practicing in Chicago, where he’s an active charity board member for Northwestern Memorial Hospital and continues with karate.

Roger Gordon received his law degree from Georgetown (he was older than many of his professors) and sat for the New York bar exam in July. Roger plans to stay in Washington, D.C., where he runs a nonprofit legal reform organization called Consumers for a Responsive Legal System. Give him a call if you’re coming to town — he gives great tours!

The Brazil Egon Zehnder team. Pictured Kellogg alums include Luis Giolo ’97, Angela Pegas ’01, Maitee Camargo ’01 and Andre Abram ’01

Kellogg gathering of ’97ers: Andy Scott, Warren Heffelfinger, Mark Holmstrom, Steve Carlson, Jon Belmonte, Marc Galletti, Brad Marks, Paul Wythes, Kurt Weinsheimer, John McWeeny, Andrew Coleman