EMP-32

Greetings to my classmates! I trust that you all had a nice summer, and have settled in for the fall football season. Go Wildcats!

I received quite a few updates from folks which is terrific; unfortunately, no photos.

First up for this column is the recent announcement at Covad of our new executive VP of sales & marketing (a.k.a. "my boss!") John McDevitt. John joined Covad in July from Chicago-based Danly IEM, where he served as vice president of sales and marketing. Per Bob Knowling, ³Covad will tap into John's track record of success and expertise to help us more efficiently and quickly scale our business so that we can deliver on our plans to provide broadband services to millions of homes and small businesses around the globe.² John and Diana will be relocating to Santa Clara and will report directly to Bob. Speaking of John and Diana, they recently welcomed a new son, Alec Joseph. Hey John and Diana, where are the pictures?!

Enough of the brown-nosing, onto more news. I received an e-mail from Jeff Dahl who -- after returning from three years in China with Coca-Cola ­ took a job as regional VP position for Aramark in Dallas. While the position offered great P&L and operational experience, Jeff was looking for a bigger shift in culture and experience. So, he and the family packed their bags and took off for Silicon Valley. Currently, Jeff is the senior VP marketing for a six-month-old start-up, Actzero -- a company specializing in advertising for Interactive TV. Jeff commented that with over two million ITV homes in the United States and growing rapidly, the only thing slowing the industry down is the deployment of broadband (like Covad, ha!) and digital cable/ MSO's. Actzero's official company launch is set for Nov.13. Stay tuned!

Paula Currie dropped me a note to let me know that she, too, has moved onto new and exciting opportunities. Paula has relocated to Virginia where she will be the VP/CFO for the Daily Press (a Tribune paper) in Newport News, Va. Congratulations Paula! Her (2) kids are doing great, with Simone in college now in Raleigh, N.C., and Warren in his third year at Georgia Tech.

Dan Haight and Patricia Shafer continue to receive the award for the "long distance couple" with Dan still at Bowater based in Charlotte, N.C., and Patricia at Bank One based in Columbus, Ohio. With their one-year anniversary quickly approaching, they will celebrate the occasion with a trip to the Amalfi Coast in Italy, Oct. 25 through Oct. 31. Come December, they leave for Kenya and Tanzania, returning in early January. Regarding Africa, Patricia states that she'd be happy if their tent has a generator; Dan says he'll be happy if he "sees something eat something else."

Dave Giblin ­ Mr. Volunteer Extraordinaire -- has been named treasurer of the Greater Dayton Hotel Assoc. and to the board of directors of the Dayton/Mont-gomery Visitors and Convention Bureau. Dave is also serving on the Advisory Board of Central State University and Sinclair Community College. According to Dave, "Community service is where it's at in Ohio."

Speaking of Ohio, another Ohio resident Brett Latham dropped me a note to let me know that he and the family made it back to their favorite spot, Acadia National Park in Maine, this summer for a 10-day tent camping adventure with the kids. Other than a 36-hour rain, a great time was had by all. Their older son, Blake, is a senior and is looking at colleges. NU is right there at the top of the list. Brett's still in finance at The Limited and having a great time reviewing strategies with his office neighbor, who's in strategic marketing for Victoria's Secret.

Kavian Goharderakhshan accepted the position of VP, quality assurance at Information Resources Inc., (IRI), a competitor of AC Nielsen in the market research and information management for the Consumer Packaged Goods markets. IRI's clients are Fortune 500 and include Pepsi and its major subsidiaries, Philip Morris, RJR, etc. Kavian started in July and reports that everything is going really well.

And, last but not least, I actually heard from Larry Miller! Larry is still with Diner's, and is now managing Diner's Latin America and Caribbean territory (rough life!). Larry is based out of Miami and welcomes any and all visitors to come and enjoy Miami anytime.

In addition to president and CEO of U.S. company, Vinayak Juvvadi is also managing director of Spry Resources India Pvt Ltd., in India. Spry Resources, an Information Technology Services company, has established a large offshore software development services and training facility at Hyderabad, India. Spry has partnered with IBM to train in SoftwareEngineering.

Enjoy your fall everyone. I am still anxiously awaiting for someone to volunteer for the class holiday party!