1998

Dear Classmates:

Please, please forgive the Liz Smith-esque tone of this column. But I must find ways to work around your omissions. For those of you who sent in updates, I commend you. You sent and gave without taking. For all others, you simply need to be prepared for me to have some creative license with your information. In other words, I shall endeavor to completely make things up about people purely for the reading pleasure of our classmates. Okay, maybe not. But I will be forced to deliver news based on my own personal knowledge and information about your lives. So consider yourself warned. Now let the truth unfoldŠ.

Wait, before we get to the truth, I just wanted to employ my editorial power by taking the opportunity on behalf of the class of 1998 to wish Dr. Marty Stoller a steady recovery. Our hearts and thoughts are with you. Enough of this nonsense. Now get back to work, Marty. Kellogg needs you!

Okay, now to the truth. Those cold winter days of early this Y2K have proven to be very, uh, productive. Many, many Kellogg babies have arrived on the scene this autumn.

Andrew Marsh is a proud new papa. Katherine Lynn Marsh was born Oct. 3 and came in at 6 lbs. 6 oz. and 19 inches.

Debbie and William Barbieri recently expanded the family with the birth of their second child, Maya Belle. She was born Sept. 2. ³Everyone is doing well, but it is pretty hectic with two kids under two [years-old] now. As for the professional life, I am still with PricewaterhouseCoopers. I have stepped off the consulting front lines and am working with our Strategic Alliance Group which focuses on identifying and negotiating partnerships and ventures with other technology firms.²

Andrew and Abigail Sinwell had a baby girl--Eloise Parsons-- on Oct. 2.

Jeff Kinsey writes: ³Last November, Heather and I had another little girl which we named Grace Victoria. Rose is enjoying having a little sister since babies are just like dolls, but they move around and you can dress them up in more clothes. The diaper changing, she leaves to Mom. I left Marakon Associates consulting this last June to join General Electric Aircraft Engines in Cincinnati as a manager in the business development group. Interestingly, the stories about GE are true, and my hours are pretty close to consulting. However, true to the cost-conscious culture fostered by the soon-to-depart Jack Welch, the travel is considerably less.²

³I am now a product manager with MicroStrategy in Washington, D.C.,² writes Brian Brinkmann. ³Since we moved, we bought a house in Virginia and most recently celebrated our newest addition to the family, Gabrielle Marie, born Oct. 6. She weighed 8 lbs. 12 oz. and is 20.5 inches long. Ann and Gabrielle are doing great! With our two-year-old son, Luke, the Brinkmann¹s are now four strong. We miss the SF gang but the Kellogg crew is alive and well in the nation¹s capital with Peter Agnvall and John Beckwith. We hope to see many others.²

Robert Hogan recently had a new addition to his growing family. He writes, ³we had our second son, Patrick, at the end of January (Colin was born during our second year at Kellogg). I left Lehman Brothers in July to join Code Hennessy & Simmons, a private equity investment firm located in Chicago which focuses on leveraged buyouts in consumer, industrial, and services businesses.²

Da Da Da Dum. Those are wedding bells. The summer is the fashionable season for tying the knot and there has been a considerable amount of tying going on. Wait, that sounds really bad. Okay, mind out of gutter. Anyway, we Kelloggians are SUCH romantics.

Len Ross got hitched in September at a party teaming with classmates. ³You may recall I took an offbeat path after graduation, joining a New Jersey start-up called DCC to commercialize a new kind of aerosol can. It¹s been a wild ride, filled with all the uncertainty and exhilaration of a startup. We commercialized our cans last May and are now working through market penetration and ramp up challenges. I¹m also happy to report that I got married last month to Roslyn Greenwald of Wayne, N.J. Roz is a jewelry designer. We met through a dating service and yes, she will take my name and be Roz Ross. We got married in Maplewood, N.J., with many Kelloggians there to celebrate with us, including Eric Reynolds, Harley and Eli Ungar, Rachel Fleishman and Eli Cohen, Rob McDowell and his fiancée Wendy Hamas, Nacho and Mariella Arrizabalaga, Mitsu and Sayuri Okamoto, Peter Salvage and Joanne Fowler, Philippe Meyersohn, Dan Clifford and John Joseph.² Rachel added, ³Len was dapper in his tux and aglow from the adoration of his friends and relations for his great business savvy, his talent as a poet and songwriter, and of course, his impressive taste in brides. We feasted on more delicacies than I recalled existed and danced off much of it before, during and after the dinner. Here¹s to many more celebrations!²

Jen Meyer married Pat Ryan on July 1 in Chatham, Mass., with many Kellogg friends and family in attendance including: Tyler Vaughey ¹01, Heidi Sandreuter ¹99, Heather Finke, Rob Fawcett, Patrick Marshall, Joanna Marshall, Ralph Davidson, Bill Garden, Federico and Tracy Cotter Germani, Trish Saltzman, Javier Medrano, Tod Saltzman, Doug Meyer ¹97, Lisa Medrano, Robert Kennedy, David Ransburg, Aurora Chen, Elisabeth Settimi, Judi Kende, Bentley Kennedy, Wistie Kennedy, and Jennifer Scheff ¹00. ³I¹m now a recruiting manager for the health care practice of Deloitte Consulting and Pat is a retail analyst for Wilson Sporting Goods. (If anyone¹s interested in health care consulting, they should contact me!).²

James Smith married Chelsea Latimer ¹99 on July 15.

David Contract also tied the knot. ³I finally got married to Valerie Latona (who attended as many TG¹s as I did). We got married on Memorial Day Weekend on Paradise Island, Bahamas, with several Kelloggians in attendance including: Chris and Sara Ehrlich, Christian and Inga Barry (Inga is honorary), Kris Zdyb, Gary Goren, Lisa Lee, Tony Shurman, and Curt Jennewine. It was an awesome weekend and a great wedding.²

Another massive Kellogg wedding took place in Colorado in August when Lisa Closson and Brandon Sweeney got married. ³We had a great weekend event in Keystone, Colo., with more than 50 Kellogg folks there in their finest glory. At an altitude of 11,000 feet, a few drinks in people turned it into a regular TG. The wedding ceremony was even performed by Sarah Jo Sarchet and she was absolutely amazing! Jane Martz & Stasia Bourke were in the wedding, as was Val Foti ¹97. Life in San Fran continues to be fun. A group of 12 (Brandon Sweeney, Marc Chaput, Charlie Benziger, Laurie & Mark Strauch, Jackie Moss, Will Adams, Steve Gwozdz, and a few others) are running in this crazy 196 mile relay race from Calistoga to Santa Cruz next weekend (I generously volunteered to drive the van). We also got into the Kellogg ski house in Tahoe this year, so look forward to some great weekends and skiing. A few people are losing dot-com jobs, but usually with some severance, so not such a bad deal after all. That¹s about it from here.²

Those Crazy Latins have been keeping the Kellogg flames of passion blowing strongly in South America. Really, folks, just what would we do without Alfredo ³Prince of Gossip² Capote keeping track of the South American contingency. Now whether or not they want this info divulged is another issue. Please, I only print this stuff. This may be fairly biased, but he does it out of love. We can¹t stop Alfredo, we can only hope to contain him.

He writes, ³Mariano Franco is doing great, since graduation he decided to forget about dot coms and went into the food business. He has opened one of the hottest places in Mexico City. The place is called ŒAsia¹ and serves all kinds of Asian food with a San Fran twist (sorry for my poor description). If you definitely want to see and be seen in Mexico City, the place to be is Asia. He is opening a new one in the next few weeks which is more concentrated on the Japanese side.

Guillermo Irurita has also concentrated in the food industry but on his much loved Œlogistical¹ side. He acquired one of the major distributors of European imported food, wine and some other delicious stuff into Mexico. Although the operation was very successful using old time technology, he is in a quest of turning around the operations to bring them to Chopra¹s standards of throughput and logistical efficiency, marketing-savvy to match Kotler¹s targeted marketing without forgetting Southwest-like motivation and foreign exchange hedging. For now he is staying in the sidelines for his dot com efforts, but he is keeping a close look to Webvan¹s, Kosmo¹s and Urbanfetch¹s efforts to create a winning business model. He is extremely happy and getting ready to kick butt in this upcoming Xmas season.

Roberto Tame and Manuel Bravo have been continuing with their efforts on the dot com world. After successfully launching a car sales operation in Mexico, Roberto and Manuel decided that Latin America and the Hispanic market in the U.S. were ready for their idea. They probably have been trying to get some of you to join them, they were successful to get Rafael Suarez ¹99 to join their team. As part of their always busy social agenda, they are your perfect guide for Miami and especially South Beach were they know extremely well who¹s who and how to get to the hottest places. But on more important news away from the dot com world, Manuel and Monica had a beautiful baby girl named Andrea on July 15.

<@body copy BOLD>Jorge Torres is extremely happy with his new married life. He is back in Mexico City working for an e-consulting firm called tecknoland.com. This firm helps dot-com¹s get their act together on supply chain management as well as other stuff. He is happy trying to apply some of the stuff he learned at PwC.

Juan Fonseca and I continue to be loyal to investment banking. Our love for the capital markets continues to increase day by day. These are interesting times to be in New York, trying to figure out what is going to be the future of the Internet and the telecom world without suffering much on our investments. With each move in the markets, we have been able to develop a good instinct for those opportunities out there. Forget about MSNBC, give us a call for free advise and detailed insight! (We are, as you can probably imagine, way underwater!). Our respective sons are doing great, Juan Jr. and Alfredo Jr., are becoming increasingly funny and demanding. It is scary to see how quickly time goes by. Especially, how far away are those Friday afternoons when your only worry was to get a big glass and grab a big bag of pretzels.

Grillo Grimaldi writes ³On the business side, I have closed a deal with Roberto Tame to form the biggest online car dealership in Latin America, deAutos.com. I am looking to bring American or European sites/technology to the region through our accelerator www.south-net.com. On the personal side, summer is coming, so if someone is thinking about fishing, trekking, or outdoors in South America, give me a call.²

Back in the US of A, I always find that a quick conversation with Nicole Avril in SF is a good way to keep tabs on the crew out there. Nic is product manager at iDrive. ³Life on the sunny side of the world is good. I¹m working too hard, but learning a lot of interesting stuff, so I guess that makes it ok. Still enjoying SF. Travelling a lot. China, Vegas, Chicago, New York.² Darling, it is soooo difficult to be so global and fabulous.

Jane Martz is living the idyllic dot com existence in SF. ³Things in San Francisco are great especially if you are following my program. I¹m contemplating being a ski bum for the winter as I¹m currently collecting severance from two different start-ups that closed their doors. Paid unemployment is a common badge of honor out here.²

Jenny Olsen recently switched jobs. ³I now work at the Walt Disney Internet Group. I run the marketing for their entertainment verticals (Movies.com, MrShowbiz.com and WallofSound.com). My team is in Seattle and I work remotely from my house in San Francisco. Very cool.²

Chris Cummings is also in a new role. ³I¹ve left Pandesic (read: Pandesic tanked) and joined Interwoven in business development. More importantly, Meredith has turned one and is on the cusp of walking as I write, and Michelle is doing well. Best to all.²

Mike Braatz is finding late luck under the start-up bug¹s influence. ³After two years doing the consulting thing at Bain in Boston, I left to start a Boston-based supply chain software company called SupplyChange. A little late to the start-up game, I realize, but what can I do, I¹m a late adopter. I am one of four founders. One is a friend from high school and the other two come to us from the Operations Research Ph.D. program at MIT. We recently closed our first round of financing with Battery Ventures, and are now working hard to build the business.²

Cathy Weber sent in word about her own start-up. ³I¹m co-founder of practice.com, an online service to help create successful IT projects and establish qualified sales leads for mid-sized IT consulting firms. It¹s been a wild nine months of planning and establishing our presence as a new business paradigm that provides interdependent and dynamic approach to procuring consulting services.²

Gary Goren is still pushing postage online. ³I¹m still at Stamps.com and have been promoted to marketing director recently <\m> probably one of the few to be at their first Internet start-up for over one year! I also just bought a house in Santa Monica. The funny thing is that Keith Quinn is now renting my place in the Hollywood Hills. He just appeared one Sunday after reading an ad and wanted to rent the place. How coincidental.²

Charlie Wise is still consulting in some of the more exotic locales of the U.S. ³Absolutely nothing of interest to report from the Wises these days. I have been trapped on a project with my company Inforte in Madison, Wis., since April, and they just had their first snow flurries last weekend. Gawd this weather blows. I¹m heading over to Kellogg (now back firmly in place at No. 2. I guess the class of 2000 was kinder in their Business Week survey than we were) to do recruiting next week, and am anxious to see what is going on back on the land of academia and free Friday beer.²

Bob Teree has been working at Virage in San Mateo, Calif., and living in San Francisco since May.

Jessica Selin is working for a software/technology start-up as the director of a business line. ³What business, you might ask? A very good one: sports. Yes, I spend part of each working day keeping up with sporting events around the country. I¹m trying to convince my boss that season football tickets should be a company expense. My company, e-Numerate Solutions, has developed an XML-compliant language that makes it incredibly easy to manipulate, graph, and share data or stats. Hence the sports applications.²

Philippe Meyerson has joined RestaurantPro in SF as senior manager of market development. ³It is a cool job which allows me to work with restaurants, beverage suppliers and food companies. Flat hunting has been pretty awful but I have now settled down. As people say in SF: find an apartment first, a job is the easy part.²

Speaking of world travelers, Blake McConnell and Sari Makofsky win the award for reckless Global indulgence after their post-resignation stint around the globe. ³We just got back from a four-month round-the-world trip including the South Pacific, Africa and Europe, and are now picking up the pieces of our former lives in San Francisco. Being hosted by Gidon Novick in Johannesburg and Melanie Brownrout in London was a nice change of pace from the youth hostels, tents and airports we slept in. We actually realized that we¹d kind of outgrown the bottom of the barrel travelling that we thought was so cool in college. So in between sheet-sack gigs, we stayed in a gorgeous farmhouse in Tuscany, lodgings overlooking the Serengeti, thatched huts in Bora Bora, a chalet in the Italian Alps and a ³four-star² hotel in Madagascar (whose ³three-star² competition was the local brothel). It was quite a trip...and hopefully our lives will never be the same as a result. By the time of this publication, we may or may not yet be employed (having left our jobs to take this trip). But hey, we¹ve got the memories!² Sari and Blake would be delighted to show you their wildlife photos and share their favorite travel picks...in exchange for a modest donation towards this month¹s rent!

Troy Anderson sent in a veritable timeline of his movements in the past years (the only way to keep up with life as a busy new media exec). ³2/99 - 5/99 Took a job with StockMaster.com. Telecommuted to StockMaster.com (Chicago to/from San Jose) while my wonderful, beautiful and talented wife, Toni, was pregnant with our second daughter, Cassidy Marie (born March 31, 1999). Yes, I made it back for the birth and took a brief paternity leave. Thanks to Sachin Mithal and family for hosting me at his place in those early days! 5/99 Took up residence in Saratoga, Calif., with the whole family (Toni, Peyton, Cassidy, and Darwin our dog) and moved StockMaster¹s office to Cupertino, Calif. 5/99 - 5/00 Wild ride as a ³see! oh¹oh² trying to stay afloat and develop a product at the same time. No VC funding. No big name investors. No time for sleep. However, I was able to get some range balls and a few meals here and there in with Wade Lagrone and some family outings with the Mithals and Spievaks. 5/5/00 Thanks to a generous assist from Jason Spievak and his friends at Broadview, sold StockMaster (70 people at this point) NOT to a local ³portal² (good thing, its stock price dropped 95 percent thereafter), but instead to Red Herring Communications, Inc. Thank you Mr. Spievak. 5/5/00 - 8/31/00 Managed the Product and Content Distribution groups at RedHerring.com. 9/1/00 - 10/16/00 Took a breather as I went from full-time to contractor. Spent a lot of time with Peyton (4), in pre-school and brand magnet, Cassidy (19 months), who calls anything you put on her feet ³shooshh² and Toni, who I have actually spent time with away from the kids! 10/16/00 - ? Have accepted an offer from the Industry Standard (San Francisco) to work in their Interactive group starting sometime in October.²

David Aufhauser is doing a fantastic job of making sure the world parties hard and parties together. Excellent continuation of the Kellogg spirit. He writes, ³Being in SF, where everyone who is anyone now lives, [N.B. the rep disagrees with this statement] I have tons of info and gossip on way too many people, but will spare you those details. Evite is kicking <\m> it seems that everyone uses it or is about to use it. I have done every job here possible except engineering. Ahh, the life of a start-up. But I did get a killer vacation to the land down under. In my fourth Olympics (I still have my sports roots in me somewhere), it was the first one where I was not working. Sydney is absolutely amazing--I could definitely live there! Of course, being in Sydney I had to check out the Kellogg Scene. I watched the Opening Ceremonies with Adrianne (Brigden) and Dave McDermott (himself an honorary Class of ¹98 alum) and hung out with them throughout the week. I also caught up with Andrew Calderwood and Scott Gardner. Needless to say we shook up the town a bit. Beach Volleyball on Bondi Beach might have been the hightlight. Although, I was fortunate enough to see Cathy Freeman at the finish line as well as all the swimming events.

Jason Spievak has been quoted in that media rag the Industry Standard (Heather Lamm¹s employer) about his role at an accelerator in that new New Media mecca of Santa Barbara. You can read of his experiences at www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,18915-3,00.html

Stephanie Gordon ¹97 and Steve Farsht have purchased a house in Minneapolis off of Lake Harriett. They moved in at the end of October. Stephanie also started a new job as director of strategic alliances at Interelate, an application service provider focused on customer relationship management. Never a dull moment, even in Minnesota!

Michael Mo is keeping tab on the lives of our slower classmates (took a few extra years to finish, huh guys?). He writes, ³Just thought I would take a minute and update you on those JD/MM students that started with you guys, and were never heard from again! Believe it or not, we finally graduated this year, which basically seems like another lifetime since all of you graduated. This summer I got married to Josephine Huang, and we¹re staying in Chicago while she finishes her residency program at Northwestern Hospital. Other JD/MMs David Nelson and Rob Ryan are also in Chicago. Dave Gaffin went out west to work for the Corporate department of Hale & Dorr in Boston, while Kerry Connell and Karen Roter joined the rush out to California and are in the San Francisco area to work for corporate law firms out there.²

Brian Sterret sent in this note. ³Last year I wrote that I was starting a new business at software company SPSS focused on helping Retailers and .coms build more profitable customer relationships. That¹s going very well, though from the mention in class notes I got headhunter calls, not candidates! I have come across many Kellogg alums, though no classmates of mine, in working with .com¹s across the country.²

Sarah Lee sent in this note. ³After Kellogg I returned to my sponsor company Gemini Consulting for approximately 18 months. In March, I moved to FT.com - the Web site for the Financial Times newspaper and much more! FT.com has recently made a big (hopefully) marketing splash in the U.S. business news market. I am a business development manager working across the three FT dot-com businesses. However, I am realizing the commercial reality of a dot com world and thinking about Œwhat do I really want to do?¹!!! In terms of Kellogg, I attended a Global Forum (with Mohan Sawnhey and Dipak Jain) last month in London, which was an excellent opportunity to get thinking hard again, check that my marketing perspective was still up-to-date and meet some other Kellogg colleagues to see what they¹d done with their careers since the MBA. I would highly recommend the day should it run again.²

There is also plenty of news from the Far East. A HUUUGGE contingency of Kelloggians has relocated to Asia.

Lou Abela-Samson and her husband moved to Singapore after graduation. ³For the past two years, I¹ve been working with the Internet team at Dell Computer Asia. Things change so quickly in the Internet world that I¹ve already had three role changes, but it¹s been a great learning experience so far. Living in Singapore has its advantages. For one, a lot of Kellogg friends like Sala, Victor Hartono, Pornchanok Tanskul, Harold La, Tony Jeff, and Curt Jennewine have dropped Jay in on business. But the best thing about living here is being able to travel to other exotic Asian destinations. So far we¹ve visited Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Nepal, Burma and Cambodia; and have fallen in love with the rich culture, fabulous architecture and friendly people in each one. (And if anyone wants to see our photographs of these places, check out our Web site at www.snapshotasia.com). Our goal is to see Tibet or India next!²

Victor Hartano is always up for a good old-fashioned data dump. He sent in his usual riff. ³The newlyweds, HD Vo and Elaine Wu, spent their honeymoon in Bali around late October. HD¹s Chinese has improved and his company (www.ensdata.com) builds software for Asian companies. Mikki Meksawan aced all her interviews with Dell and got multiple offers from the same company. Walt Ling moved to Japan. Isabelle Gecils and her husband Ferdie got a beautiful new house in a SF suburb, a perfect place to spoil their favorite pet, a yellow labrador. Truman Ren is in DC. Tony Jeff¹s new assignment at Delphi Automotive is to manage a department responsible for business case analysis for all North American products. From his e-mails, Tony seems to be enjoying this assignment very much. Andy Untono has his own dot-com venture in Shanghai called www.myvirgo.com. Jay Sala permanently moved to Asia; he is still with AT Kearney, but now he¹s based in Hong Kong. Bridget Lee also moved to Hong Kong. Rami Kahlon is so swamped with lots of marketing activities at www.akamba.com because he is the sole marketing manager. When May Wu was in Scottsdale, Ariz., for a technology conference in September, she bumped into Danny Su and Mike Avilla; they had dinner together. Maite Limlingan and Steve LaBella just celebrated their one-year anniversary last month. Harold La is still in Hong Kong; probably eyeing some cheap Indonesian banks right now. Nicole Lowsalaraks works in GE Capital Bangkok. Aurora Chen, who¹s currently on a Hong Kong assignment, told me that she met Robert Chiu several times there. Lastly, I was out of town when the Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX) bomb exploded. That building is only three minutes away from my house and I pass through the JSX complex every day after work. Phheeewww.

Now for my own stories. Recent additions to our happy group of London inhabitants include Christian Hackett who moved here in September with Enron. Debbie Morrison also made the move in September. I sense danger for Ms. Morrison with Tereska ³The Fabulous² Buzek, Megan ³Party Goddess² Marshall and myself being her tour guides. As we like to say ­ many, many antics. I also recently had dinner in London with Mark Manuel who was buzzing into town straight from a hardcore week of shmoozing at MIPCOM in Cannes, France. ³You know how it is,² he told me, ³E!¹s party one night, MTV the next. It is all such hard work.² What a drag. Mark moved from PricewaterhouseCoopers¹s Corporate Finance Group in Chicago back to his native L.A. to work with Paramount Pictures¹ International Television Division. On a trip I made in September from N.Y. to L.A., I ran into Jeff Blount deboarding from a flight from SF in JFK. We spent some QT. Everything is okay with him (still at Marakon, still tall). In L.A. I got to see Leo Griffin, Anne and Jon (J.B.) Boris, Heather Lamm and Alex Ooms. All are doing great and made me a bit homesick for L.A. Okay, that did not last long, cause I¹m still having a blast in the U.K. The offer still stands for visitors to hang in Notting Hill and with the ever growing group of Kelloggians over here, we shall soon challenge SF for TG turnout. That¹s it for now. Please stay in touch. I love hearing from you guys (as does everyone else ­ no pressure).

Annetta Hewko has been very busy the last few years. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union when foreign companies started appearing in the region, she was recruited to build up Pepsi-Cola¹s Ukrainian operation. From Ukraine her journey led to Slovakia, where she worked as commercial director and built a joint test operation of PepsiCo soft drinks and snack foods. Later, when the two businesses were separated, she managed the independent Frito-Lay operation. She went to Hungary in 1996 as the regional commercial director of the Frito-Lay and then became managing director of Lay¹s in Hungary near the end of the following year. Annetta not only built Frito-Lay in Hungary, but has also organized an association for female managers called the Professional Women¹s Association.

PhatPipe, Inc., a broadband technology company for owners of industrial real estate and their tenants, announced that Charles Huiner has joined the senior management team as its chief financial officer. In this position, Hiuner will leverage his extensive background in all aspects of finance, investment and business development to assist in PhatPipe¹s development of strategic partnerships with leading industrial real estate owners, its nationwide broadband deployment efforts and its continuing corporate expansion projects. As CFO he will oversee PhatPipe's financial administration, business development and general management.