EMP-63

	Alfonso Cantalapiedra EMP-63 and sons Marco and Diego
	Gustavo Coronel EMP-63 and family in Australia
	Ellen Seibenborn Forsyth EMP-63 and husband Matt took a much-needed work- and kid-free ski weekend in early March. No one got hurt and the wine was good!
	Maureen Floeter Calabrese and Heather Boyer (both EMP-63) watch it all go down
	Kim Jude and David Seemater (both EMP-63)
	Paul Del Gallo and Jim Lott (both EMP-63)
	Paul Del Gallo, Rodney Mayers and Russell Cravey (all EMP-63)
	James Park, Seiji Shino Shinozaki, Eishen Takahashi and Brian Tilley (all EMP-63)
	David Seemater, Paul Del Gallo and Mikenzie Sari (all EMP-63)
	David Seemater and Jim Lott (both EMP-63)
	David Seemater and Maureen Floeter-Calabrese (both EMP-63)
	Paul Del Gallo, John Baksht, Charles Thompson (EMP-63)

EMP-63 owned the reunion! Of the Kellogg EMP alumni in attendance, EMP-63 boasted not only the largest number of attendees, but represented more than half of all EMP alumni there. We also had gold stars for travel, with classmates coming in from Moscow, Paris, Madrid and really foreign places, like Kerrville, Texas.

Friday began like any Friday with the group — drinks at CDG. This began with Paul Del Gallo, Jim Lott, David Seematter and James Park with his new wife, Mimi. Subsequently, we traveled to the “under the tent” event. Attendance was huge, as was our impact. During the trip with James, Paul and David, Mimi entered our permanent lexicon with the phrase “This the longest cab ride … ever.”

On Friday evening, we held our EMP-63 class dinner at the Stained Glass. We were troubled by how much they recognized every single person. Pictures are online. After dinner, the group went for a night on the town in Evanston and Chicago. In Evanston, they returned to the bars to discover that many of their pictures were still up on the wall. Apparently many of these haunts misspelled “Hall of Fame” as “Do Not Admit.” One individual shall remain nameless except to specify that we call him “Young” and his name and he constantly points out Mikenzie is younger. Anyhow, he chose to reproduce his final weekends at Kellogg and proved that “no pitcher of beer is out of the question.” CDG was occupied by a hostile crew looking for its host. MaryFran Dirkes made clear “It is not Paul Del Gallo’s fault.” It’s the only time people didn’t listen to her.

On Saturday, we once again pioneered our own way. While many attended the Kellogg activities, we took over the downtown campus and held our own Brian Uzzi-style “reciprocity experiment.” Stories were told, favors exchanged, and the group again took it to a whole new level.

On Saturday night, we attended the cocktail party and dinner hosted for all EMPs. This was, as far as we were concerned, ground zero. It was an incredible evening of drink, friends, alumni and all other manner of fun. Dinner was a soon-forgotten memory as we switched our attention to the downtown hotel, its bar, CDG, and most of us are sworn to leave the photos in a burn bag and memories in a “for us only” category.

Sunday was completely lost to almost everyone. Most of the information passed on is allegation. In attendance were Maureen Floeter-Calabrese, Alexander Vaisblat, Kinesh Doshi, Chris Brogan, Charles Thompson, Hans van Wees, Sujit Bakre, Kim Jude, James Park, Seiji Shinozaki, Rafiq Mohammadi, Brian Beeler, Eishin Takahashi, Clem Johnson, Polo Quintano, Peter Granat, Michele Azar, Mikenzie Sari, Greer O’Brien, Rodney Mayers, Kevin O’Shaughnessey, Paul Del Gallo, Vikas Aditya, Russell Cravey, Brian Tilley, Jason Childers, Ann-Marie Vietti, Jim Lott, Safak Guven, Yves Raymond, Dan Skinner, Roger Gregory, Heather Boyer, Bill Dirkes, Jon Baksht, Ken Sandifer, David Seematter, Rafiq Mohammadi, Russell Cravey and Julian Wiles.

Peter Granat announces that they welcomed Oliver William to their family on March 20. Gordon is adjusting and enthusiastic about being a big brother. Marta and Peter are still catching up on sleep and looking forward to a long vacation in New England this summer.

Jim Lott and his wife Trish are pleased to announce the arrival of Camilla Violet Lott. Mother, father, brother and most importantly, baby Camilla are all doing great. Jim has claimed Camilla as his “anchor baby” for all countries, but the French, American and all other governments have offered only “asylum” to the rest of the Lott family from Jim.

Jim Lott also has taken on an expanded role to cover change management and organizational development in addition to his current responsibilities for portfolio and project management. This, of course, is in his role at Lafarge in Paris. In reality, no one is certain he has been appointed the position, as the memo came in French. His first translation of the news was “Dear Sir, I am the son of the Crown Prince of Nigeria with a special offer for your assistance with moving our funds from our overseas bank accounts.” His second translation was “You have been appointed the director of overseas boondoggles and cheese sampling.” He acted on both for a long time until his bank accounts were empty, he gained seven pounds and he noticed a bunch of unhandled objectives in his inbox.

Wiener Mondesir and wife Ericka welcomed son Jaiden Mondesir in March. All are well and Weiner cashed this in as his “no really, I can’t go to Reunion” excuse.

Nikolaj Sjoqvist is on vacation with the family in Florida. They were supposed to be in the Bahamas on a prepaid vacation, but his wife lost her plastic green card. So while they could technically leave the country, there was no guarantee they would (or specifically she would) get back in. So close to half a million hotel points and several headaches later, they now see themselves in Disney World, Sea World and a variety of other overpriced theme parks. Nikolaj has been going around Disney World and attempting to use the “fast lane” lines by flashing his new “McKinsey Associate Partner” business card. Word from the family is that the long line is even more dreadful when you have to be sent there on a walk of shame with a scowling look from the staff after Dad tries “the business card stunt.”

Rosemary McGillicuty is pleased to announce her one-of-a-kind candidacy for president in the 2012 U.S. election. She is ready to be the nominee of both the Democratic and Republican Parties. Confident she can outflank the Republicans on the right and the Democrats on the right, Rosemary has been hosting “fundraisers” in the key primary states of North Dakota, the Solomon Islands and Guam. She is still struggling with what to call the citizens of Guam. In one speech she announced, “What do I even call you folks? Guamies, Guamaroons … Guambats.” Once she wins both candidacies, she intends to host a series of debates, taking herself to task for her lack of credentials, flip-flopping, and lacking the capabilities of her opponent.

Russell Cravey and his wife Rhonda took their annual trip to Bermuda. While Rhonda was soaking up the sun and enjoying the Cambridge Beeches Spa, Russell was fly-fishing for bonefish, tuna and wahoo. Their theme was “a day without a buzz is a day that never wuz!” Rhonda reports “with eyes rolling” that that has not been their theme at all. The theme has been “a day where I can get that recalcitrant foot-dragging Aggie out of my hair so I can be constructive is a good day.”

Peter Granat moved back to Chicago from London in January. Peter started a new role as president of Cision North America. Marta was certified to teach yoga while in London and is teaching at a home studio in Chicago. Peter was certified in watching Marta do yoga while drinking a beer and watching the kids. It was more of a “learn to earn credit” sort of thing, but nonetheless.

Charles Thompson was named chief operating officer of Property Management Business Solutions. Charles is responsible for overseeing the company’s more than 200 office locations and the overall day-to-day corporate operations. Charles currently owns franchises in Texas. We largely don’t know what all this means so we summarize it as follows. You own a franchise, you help property owners. They need the pool cleaned, you call Charles. Gutters full, Charles in charge. Need someone to string your Christmas lights, one tall Texan with a ladder coming right up.

Hans Van Wees went to Tahoe to “ride my century.” He took the ride with “America’s Most Beautiful Ride” which honors those fighting cancer and remembering those who lost their fight. Specifically, he rode in honor or in memory of his father Harry, who passed in January 2010, and his friend Roland, who passed in January. He also rode for several others who friends pledged in memory of. Hans was so pleased to do this for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and appreciates everyone’s generosity. In a related note, Hans was a little surprised that “ride his century” actually involved pedaling. He originally envisioned a “bicycle built for two” and some body-builder on the front seat. Or maybe a Harley. Nonetheless this was a great experience and a wonderful cause.

Alfonso Cantalapiedra reports they celebrated Marco’s third birthday on April 8 and Diego’s first on April 28. They are now perfecting the formula to have their third child on April 18, but nothing to report on that front yet. For Mother’s Day, the family went up to Disney and Universal, again. Superheroes were the highlight this time, as Marco is a full-fledged member of the Marvel family. They also spent a weekend at the Nickelodeon Resort with Diego, Dora and SpongeBob. And yes, Alfonso did get slimed for not having any current pop-culture knowledge.
 
On the professional front, Alfonso is in charge of European business development and strategy for Apollo Global while maintaining his Latin America responsibilities. He has also been placed on the BOD of Apollo’s Latin America institutions. Still, he has not been able to convince the academics that a four-semester study of Rock Era 1985-1988 has merits under the world-culture curriculum. Alfonso met up with Gustavo Coronel in Santiago, Chile at Conejo a Cangrejo. They work for competing companies, and neither gave in to the other’s constant invitation to do jaeger shots and talk shop. Alfonso was then very tempted to drink a lot of jaeger and drunk-dial Paul Del Gallo as revenge for the 15 calls he got at 3 a.m. during Reunion weekend. But he couldn’t remember the number and knows he would never has been as clever. Never. Plus Del Gallo had friends ringing every line over and over.

Paul Del Gallo and Seji Shinozaki caught up together in Boston. It was a night of fine dining, wine and cigars. Then Seiji called Paul. Anyhow they had a wonderful dinner and had cigars in one of the last places you are allowed to have them in Boston.

Gustavo Coronel just returned from Australia. He and his family had an amazing 10 days of great sun, great food and spectacular views, and of course visits to local zoos and national parks. Mateo was fascinated by the koalas and kangaroos, and Monica took photos of the entire trip. As you know, Gustavo loves beer and wine so he was in his paradise! Gustavo also visited the Sydney Opera House, where he was the first individual in history told “you sing so badly we don’t even want you to listen to the music here.”

Roger Gregory and Ronnie Razmi met up for dinner at NoBu 57 in December. To quote Roger, after six years Ronnie actually showed up with a girl. To quote Ronnie’s wife, “I’m a woman, you Texan twit.” A fantastic meal was followed by many drinks and laughter.

Ellen Siebenborn Forsyth and her husband Matt took a much needed work- and kid-free ski weekend in March. No one got hurt and the wine was good! The kids also report that “their grandparents are well and fed them only nutritious food. We go to bed on time each evening after a long night of study and prayers. We saw no amusement parks. Stay calm and carry on.” This was surprising, since both were under 6 years old.
 
Matt, Ellen, Maddison and Clayton participated in the Northwest Arkansas Heart Association Walk (Ellen is on the board of the American Heart Association and the kids, with their milk mustaches, were good representatives for both the dairy industry and Cheerios.

An EMP-63 reunion: Hans Van Wees, Heather Boyer, Kevin O’Shaughnessey, Rafiq Mohammadi, Mikenzie Sari, Ann-Mari Peluso Vietti, Sujit Bakre, Michele Azar, Eishin Takahashi, Chris Brogan, Bill Dirkes, Rodney Mayers, Paul Del Gallo, Safak Guven, Polo Quintano, Jon Baksht, Charles Thompson, Kim Jude, Greer O’Brien, Seiji Shinozaki, Roger Gregory and James Park

Kevin O'Shaughnessey, Hans Van Wees, Paul Del Gallo, James Park, Sujit Bakre, Eishen Takahashi and Roger Gregory (all EMP-63)

A big EMP-63 reunion: Bill Dirkes, Heather Boyer, Hans Van Wees, Vikas Aditya, Rodney Mayers, Polo Qunitano, Julian Wiles, John Baksht, Russell Cravey, Charles Thompson, David Seemater, Dan Skinner, Jason Childers, Sujit Bakre, Rafiq Mohammadi, Eishen Takahashi, Paul Del Gallo, Michele Azar, Kinesh Doshi, Seiji Shinozaki, Kim Jude, Mikenzie Sari, Peter Granat, Clem Johnson, Jim Lott, Brian Beeler and James Park (all EMP-63)

Kim Jude, Russell Cravey, Chris Brogan and his wife Mierna, David Seemater, Jim Lott and Dan Skinner staring down the camera (all EMP-63 unless noted)