1986

If you are interested in volunteering for your 20th reunion, please call Beth Truta at 847.467.4549 or email b-truta@kellogg.northwestern.edu.

Thank you for all of the responses to my last column. But I will continue to write it anyway. A few suggestions were helpful. I have switched from drinking a quart of Wild Turkey before I sit down in front of the computer to drinking a fifth of gin. I do feel mellower.

We do have our 20-year class reunion next May. Some of you may have been contacted to be on the committee. If you would like to be on the committee and have not been contacted, send me a note. I'll get you on the team with no problem.

	Tom Moore '86 with his wife Barbara and son Reid
	The Bigelow party continues...
	From left to right: Todd Brachman '86, with Mary, Alison and Ron Leaf '86
	Todd Brachman, left, and Ron Leaf wield their old Kellogg broomball sticks.

Nikki Pope has promised to attend. (Really, Tommy and Charlie). After a scant 12 months working for the Justice Department, she has given up trying to improve the federal government one office at a time (she thinks she is too old and there are too many offices). Instead she is returning to the Bay area (San Francisco, not Green Bay), to a temperate climate and residents with interests other than politics. She will be working at a private firm in deal financing and M & A (shocking Tom Moore and Marlon Brownlee). She recently spoke with Robert Gaddi and Nikki thinks he sounds exactly the same as he did the last time they spoke (a million years ago in New York). Robert is doing well in Chicago and has some great summer stories from Montauk, but he did not share them with me. I heard it was something about pretending to be a marine biologist and saving a whale. Craig Brennon has finally stopped gallivanting around the globe spending his ill-gotten CEO loot. Craig took the CEO position at a company called Tumbleweed. Nikki also keeps in touch with Ginger Campbell. Ginger's daughter, Myko, is a riot. She is a miniature Ginger, according to Nikki. Nikki was disappointed to miss Janet Sedlock's wedding (details later), but she had family obligations that weekend. Nikki will not be available for D.C. tours anymore, but she does offer this advice. Skip the White House tour (a real snoozer), but do schedule a tour of the Justice Department's RFK building. It has some amazing artwork and lots of insider information.

Charlie Baker has nothing to say, except that he and his family visited San Francisco for a week this summer. (They wanted to visit before Nikki returned.) While there, they toured Alcatraz and debated leaving the bad children behind. The family, (including the bad children) walked across the Golden Gate Bridge and in the language of Boston, it is "wicked" high off the ground. They also trekked among the redwoods in Muir Woods and had a blast wandering around Fisherman's Wharf and Chinatown, including a few trips on the famous cable cars. Professionally, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care continues to do well, winning a bunch of awards for service and member satisfaction. Working keeps Charlie gainfully employed, busy and mostly out of trouble. Over the summer, Greg Pomerance and his wife Martha visited Charlie and family in Boston with their two children, Sarah and Reid. They all had fun catching up and watching Reid eat a pile of steamer clams the size of his head. Charlie has bought World Series tickets and looks forward to the dynasty continuing.

Tom Moore is enjoying the good life in South Orange. He and his wife Barbara have a 3-year-old son, Reid. (Was there some naming rule I missed at Kellogg?) They are enjoying the challenges and fun of parenthood and had a great vacation in Hilton Head. Tom is having a wonderful time at Morgan Stanley despite the headlines from earlier this year. Tom saw John Clomax during the summer at his son Emery's 4th birthday party. Reid's godfather, Marlon Brownlee, is doing well. Tom saw Marlon out for a run with his daughter, Simone, and she was in the lead! Tom also ran into Dave McKinney this spring, but nobody was hurt.

Fred O'Connor writes that he keeps in touch with Doug Allen and Tony Mann. In August all three families came together for a trip to Maine, where they spent a week on an island on an inland lake (it was supposed to be a three-hour tour). Everybody had a great time enjoying nature, swatting mosquitoes and catching up on life. Fred continues his entrepreneurial adventure with his practice (Dr. O'Connor?) in executive search. He likes the fact that it gives him another reason to keep in touch with his classmates. Fred and his wife, Jill, have three sons and live in Evanston. His two eldest boys attended this summer's Northwestern football training camp, led by the varsity coaches.

Cindi Bigelow has been keeping in touch with many classmates also. She organized a little get-together with the families of Thomas Gyongyosi, Nazaret Festekjian and Jordan Davis on Long Island. They all met in the Village for a fantastic Thai dinner, and had a great time.

Julie Rochlin Shohet visited Hawaii and caught up with Dan Lambert. She would have spent the night, but the thread count on the sheets in the guest room was not acceptable, so they stayed at a hotel. OK, I made that up.

Big news from the former Janet Sedlock. She is now Janet Sedlock Wallace! Representing Kellogg in Seattle at the wedding were Cecilia Fabrizio, Cammie Marsden Vail, Ron Stover and Gretchen Lux Redd '85. Janet and Rhea have a blended family of three dogs and one cat, with an aquarium of fish on the way. She is currently a project director for an organization called Executive Services Corps that offers consulting services to nonprofits. She also does some strategic planning on her own. Cecilia was in from Connecticut where she is vice president of communications and marketing for Americares. Janet said that Cecilia was really busy during last year's tsunami disaster. I would suspect she has been busy in New Orleans this year. Ron and their two girls had their own little emergency while they were here. They got stuck in the elevator between the 37th and 38th floors of the Westin. They didn't even earn additional frequent guest points! Cammie is the executive director of the Palo Alto Community fund and, to fill my requirement for "children at camp" stories, left the wedding weekend early to pick up her son from a week of sleepover camp.

Brad Kime has nothing interesting to report, so he is working on either doing a lot of charity work or getting involved in a big business scandal. Either will be fine for this column. It would appear that charity will win out. Brad has joined the national board of nonprofit Operation Hope, a leading provider of financial literacy services and education programs to youth across the country. The organization is based in Los Angeles and is working with the White House on expanding programs in other metropolitan areas soon.

Josh Field was able to contact me between hurricanes and say that he and his family are doing well in Florida. He recently left Legacy for Life. He got tired of having energy all the time. Plus, living in Florida, he realized that living to 100 isn't worth it, if the only benefits are wearing plaid pants and driving without turn signals.

Martin Suter is starting in a new direction. He recently left Dell and has started his own company. His company will focus on executive training and coaching. I would just hit most executives with a baseball bat, but Martin — having lived in Switzerland all these years — has much better diplomatic skills than I do. Good luck Martin!

This summer I did see many of our classmates. Lauren Woods Schreiner and her husband, Jim, had a wonderful cookout in her backyard. Jeff Bartlett and his wife, Jane, were there as well. The food was so good that Laurie and I decided that we have to move because we can never invite Lauren and her family over to eat the slop I cook. Ron Leaf, his wife Mary, and their oldest daughter Alison visited us in August. Ron and Mary were driving Alison to Cornell for her freshman year. They took Oyvand Solvang's ferryboat across Lake Michigan. Ron had such a good time on the high seas that next year he will buy Alison a bus ticket and hope she can find her way to Cornell on her own. Alison is a smart young woman; she'll find the school without dad. I'm planning my annual January ski trip to Utah and hope to see Kevin Damon and family while I'm there. If I give them too much notice, they plan trips to Houston or Seattle during my visit.

Even though none of us have aged, somehow we have a 20-year reunion coming up next May 5-7, 2006. If anyone would like to be on the planning committee, please contact Kellogg or me. If you leave the planning to me, it will be nothing but potato chips and beer, so I suggest we get a few greater minds on the committee. I look forward to catching up with many of you in person next May.