1984
Hi everyone!
This is Indie, and unbelievably, by the time you get this
article we will be in the fourth quarter of 2003! The big
news for this column is that we, are headed for our 20th
reunion. Is it possible that we could be that old?
The reunion is set for April 30-May 2. So please put it on
your calendars now. Joan Bolz Cleary and Wendy Weiss Kritt
are heading up the reunion committee and are looking for
anyone interested in helping out. In the meantime they have
this to share with us all:
A group
of ’84 grads is working on concepts for our
20th reunion. By doing a little extra planning and involving
our highly active classmates, we should be able to top our
trend-setting predecessors, the Class of ’83. Last
year’s reunion team upped the ante for 20-year reunions
by tailoring reunion activities to our “40-something” crowd,
and they significantly topped attendance and giving of that
of other 20-year reunion groups. Additionally, the people
who attended had a riot and reconnected with Kellogg ’83
friends from around the world. You can see info and photos
on the Kellogg alumni Web site.
Classmates
should keep an eye out for materials from Kellogg, including
some “save the date” notices
and a survey to help tailor the event itself. Our key contact
at
Kellogg is Hwashing Heyworth in the alumni office.
Please contact Joan, Wendy or Hwashing at Kellogg to get
involved with the planning. They are looking forward to getting
many people involved to make this a successful event.
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Birgitta Hannan ’84 married John
Domesick on June 2. |
Now for the news from our classmates. We will start with
great news from the East Coast. Wedding bells rang for Birgitta
Hannan on June 2 when she married John Domesick in Westchester,
N.Y. A large Kellogg contingent was there to wish her well.
Long distance awards went to both Barb Vass and Bob Egan,
who flew in from California. Lynette Barnes Hinch, her husband,
Jeff, and Wendy Weiss Kritt made it in from Chicago. The
NY/CT gang included Steve Zales and his wife, Cathy, David
Lynn and his wife, Ginny Melvin, Dwight Hilson and his wife,
Mindy, and Steve Palmer and his wife, Laura. During the reception
Steve managed to get in touch with Leigh Stokes and Tom Gerlach,
who live in Washington State. I am told that another mini-reunion
happened then as his cell phone was passed around so everyone
could say hi.
Rori
Grosse writes that “this is the first time my
real-life stuff overlaps my business life. I’m a Creative
Memories leader. This is a direct sales company that focuses
on teaching people the importance of preserving their family
memories through the creation of safe, meaningful photo scrapbook
albums. I’m busy growing my business and training others
to do what I do. The job involves fun trips to Florida, Minneapolis,
Atlanta, Palm Desert and Anaheim.”
From
the West Coast, Jim and Jan Huston are still living on
the farm
in Sherwood, Ore., (just outside of Portland),
but may have a move in their future. Jan is a “professional
parent” (chauffeur, soccer coach, pony riding instructor,
arts and crafts counselor, gardener, etc.) for Reed, 5, and
Hannah, 9. The kids keep her busy, but she wants to do some
work with grownups again. In addition to kids, Jan is also
still riding horses and running to stay in shape. Jim is
still at Intel (19 years, WOW!), having spent the last eight
years in Intel Capital, the venture arm of the company. He
is still running regularly, teaching business classes, mentoring
college students locally and building what might just be
the biggest tree house ever. The whole family gets involved.
They recently had a lovely dinner with David Chen and his
wife, and after talking about Kellogg spent most of the evening
talking about the challenges of raising children.
Thad ’87 and Katie Seymour and their teenaged sons,
T.G., 17, and Nate, 13, are just back from the mountains
of the Dominican Republic where they worked to build houses
in a very poor rural village as part of the Dreambuilders
Project. The program helps future homeowners who contribute
at least $800 and sweat-equity hours and work on construction.
Katie has served on the steering committee of the project
since its inception two years ago. The volunteer effort is
coordinated from the mission office of the Catholic Diocese
of Orlando. “Frankly, I am of more help to the project
behind my computer than behind the power saw, as I almost
buzzed through the saw horse more than once!” she writes. “But
I really wanted to get back to Guayabal and introduce my
family to the warm and generous people of the village.” Now
it’s back to qualitative research for Katie, while
Thad serves as president of business services for CFSE Inc.,
an accounting and management firm in Winter Park, Fla.
Lori Pivo writes that after 18 years with Eli Lilly and
then Guidant Corp., she is happily working part-time as director
of human resources for Guidant. She is lucky to have the
best of both worlds, working and getting home when the
kids
come home from school. Her daughter, Danielle, is 13 and
her son, Adam, is 10. They took a trip to Atlanta last
spring and had the best time with Denice and Shawn and their
girls.
It had been 11 years since they had seen each other.
Jessie
Herman reports that she started a new job as an account
executive
for eMag Inc. in Buckhead. They sell various
data
media for storage and backup services. She says that anyone
who is in need of storage backup and recovery of lost or
damaged tape, media and hard drives knows how important it
is to have a good backup somewhere offsite. If you lose that
backup or don’t have one, eMag can restore your data.
She is going to continue to keep her mortgage loan origination
business going on the side. She says she had been doing residential
loans for the last two years, “since the x.coms became
x.bombs.” Jessie is living in Alpharetta with her husband,
Chick (NU Music MA ’82), the band director at Haynes
Bridge Middle School, and their three children.
Mary
Madick Morrow provided the following update on her blended
family: “Rodger Morrow and I combined our families
when we married Aug. 31, 2002. Our family now consists of
Grant, 16, a junior at the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey;
Maggie, 13, an 8th-grade diva; and Eddie, 9, entering 4th
grade. (That’s not including the three large dogs totaling
285 pounds and the rapidly aging house.) We live in a suburb
of Pittsburgh, where I hold down the fort while Rodger commutes
to his job as director of strategic communications for the
Otis Elevator Co. in Farmington, Conn. I have remained in
the customer service arena and am working for the University
of Pittsburgh Medical Center, combining the service and communications
operations for its 14 hospitals. It’s a busy, chaotic,
but fulfilling life. Best regards to all.”
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Gary Lynn ’84 |
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Gary
Lynn was recently named one of the nine leading management
gurus in the country by Business 2.0 Magazine. Past selections
include Peter Drucker and W. E. Deming. Gary is a tenured
professor of marketing and innovation at Stevens Institute
of Technology in Hoboken, N.J. His new book, Blockbusters
(co-authored by Richard Reilly, HarperBusiness Publishers)
was selected as one of the most important management publications
in the world last year by Manager’s Executive Book
Summaries of France and one of the best business books published
this year by Soundview Executive Book Summaries. Blockbusters
summarizes the results of the authors’ 10-year study
of more than 700 new product teams, including nearly 50 of
the most successful products ever launched, such as the Black & Decker
Dustbuster, Colgate Total Toothpaste and Polycom Soundstation
Conference Phone. The book has been translated into Chinese,
Korean, Spanish and Russian. This is Gary’s fourth
book — he wrote his first while finishing his degree
at Kellogg. Gary currently lives in Millburn, N.J., with
his wife and two young children.
Lynnette
Barnes Hinch has retired from the corporate world to take
on a
new assignment:
spending more time with children
Blake, 4, and Tucker, 3. Lynnette writes: “I had been
senior vice president of marketing for Solo Cup Co. for the
last four years, so this change has been quite an adjustment.
I love being home and find the experience very rewarding
(and challenging).” |