1985

Summer is over, fall is here and the holidays are staring us in the face! Like you, we’ve been incredibly busy, but life is happy, so I suppose that is the result we’re striving for. Not much new news on the Poatsy front, so let me tell you about others:

Samuel C. Dixon now serves as vice president for artistic operations at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Steve Yastrow broke a long silence to tell us of a new venture he has launched. For four years, Steve has had his own consulting business, Yastrow Marketing, where he does strategy work, focusing on branding and marketing.“It’s been great,” Steve reports. “My suits are gathering dust in the closet, and all of the cufflinks I bought when I worked at Hyatt haven’t seen the light of day in years!”

In particular, Steve has been working with Tom Peters and the Tom Peters Co. He is hosting a new feature on tompeters.com called “The Brand Café.” The Brand Café is a provocative forum where people can share ideas about marketing. Steve also sends out an e-mail newsletter. Check it out. It’s a great site.

Also breaking a long silence is Bruce Boissonnault. Bruce is executive director of the Niagara Health Quality Coalition, a business-led public policy firm whose mission is to improve the quality of health care delivery through the development and public dissemination of quality measures. This year, NHQC received the 2001 National Health Care Purchaser Award for “achievement in the purchasing of quality health care.”

At home, Bruce and his wife, Joan, have two boys, Alex, 12, and William, 6. The boys are following in their mom’s footsteps and playing the violin incredibly well. Alex has been named first violinist for three years running in the Erie County Orchestra and in the Greater Buffalo Youth Strings Orchestra. He will tour South America in the spring with the Buffalo Suzuki Strings Advanced Touring Ensemble. For any of us who have “suffered” as their children learn to play a new instrument, Bruce’s family have reached that pinnacle where “both boys play violin well enough that even hearing them practice is now a pleasure.”

Congratulations to Rich Damisch, who is no longer an unemployment statistic! In June, Rich began his new position as manager of finance and accounting at a high-tech start-up called Novarra, Inc. (Rich encourages you to check out their Web site at www.novarra.com). Novarra writes Intranet software for wireless devices. Just recently, Rich reports, the company successfully completed a third round of financing. Good luck, Rich.

Finally, Lance Rosenzweig sent me an e-mail to announce the birth of identical twin boys earlier this year — Schuyler and Bogart. He and his wife, Karen, together with big sister Rebecca, 5, are really enjoying their new additions. Congratulations!

Lance founded PeopleSupport in Los Angeles three years ago. PeopleSupport provides “next-generation customer-care outsourcing,” such as phone and e-mail customer support, to major companies. Since inception, they have raised $75 million in venture capital and are now over 500 employees strong. According to Lance, “the dot-com debacle was crazy, but luckily we weathered the storm!” Lance welcomes anyone contacting him at lrosenzweig@mindspring.com.

Marc Poulin writes: “In May I was named president of Sobeys’ Quebec division. Sobeys is Canada’s second-largest food retailer, with sales of $12 billion. Met with Dean Mendez, another Kellogg grad based in Montreal and are looking at real estate deals together for new supermarkets. My wife and I and our two kids (Mathieu, 8, and Justine, 6) will welcome any visitor passing by Montreal.”

So, that’s it! Hey, why not follow these classmates’ initiative and break some long silences? It only takes a couple of minutes (especially by e-mail) and we’d all love to know what you’re up to (even if it’s old news to you, it’s still new news to us). Hope to hear from you soon. In the meantime, hope life continues to be happy, healthy and prosperous for everyone!