1985

Hello, Class of '85. I've only had two classmates write to me over the past several months, so I'll continue to make my plea to drop me a quick e-mail and let me know what's going on in your lives so I can pass it on to everyone else. Remember how fun it was to exchange stories during Reunion? We can still do that — just through Kellogg World and me. Your kids' and spouses' successes are just as important as your own, so feel free to boast about those as well. I look forward to hearing from many more of you soon.

Jayant Kanitkar writes that when he left Kellogg he joined Bank of America and has lived and worked in San Francisco for 21 years. In May, he retired (is he the first?). During his tenure at B of A, Jayant changed jobs every couple of years, experiencing 10 careers from finance to marketing to policy to administration to process design to six sigma. Unfortunately, Jayant's business success was offset by the loss of his first wife, Leena, to breast cancer in 1999. Jayant raised two children — son Kedar (20) and daughter Kalika (16). Last year, he married Bharati, who also raised two daughters — Madhura (22) and Mayura (16) — alone. Jayant doesn't know what's next for him, but for now he says he's going to enjoy retired life!

I actually found Andy Birol through his Web site as I was doing research on my next book, an introduction to business text for Prentice Hall. What a pleasant surprise to see Andy's name and picture in the midst of information on intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs! Kindly, Andy has a "please write me" link on his site, so I did, and he replied with this news: Andy is the owner of Birol Growth Consulting, an organization that helps businesses to expand. In the past year, Andy has self-published three more books, produced a 12-minute video of his business and won his fourth consecutive Weatherhead 100 and first NEO Success Awards. Most importantly, he completed his fifth book, The Five Catalysts of Seven Figure Growth, which was accepted for commercial publication by Career Press and has been on bookshelves nationally since early this year. Andy is married with one daughter, Margot. Despite his busy schedule, he still finds plenty of time to travel with his family and play golf, though apparently his golf handicap has not improved.

This summer, on the spur of the moment, my husband Ted Poatsy decided to drive our daughter Laura to Northwestern so she could see the campus. It had been a while since she had been there, and she is interested in applying to Northwestern for college. So, 15 hours later — at 1:30 a.m. — Ted, Laura and Carolyn (13, who had decided to go along) arrived in Skokie at the Days' Inn — seemingly the only hotel that had rooms available. They had a great campus visit and even had the opportunity to meet the softball coach and staff. For those of you who do not follow girl's softball, Northwestern finished second in the Women's College World Series this year. They have an amazing program and Laura would love to play for them. She was thrilled to meet them, and they were very kind to her, showing her the facilities and talking to her about the program. Afterward, Ted caught up with Greg French, who was also kind enough to house them the following night. Greg is still running his own commercial real estate business. Like most of us, Greg spends his spare time with his wife Kathy, getting their three kids to a variety of sporting and school activities.

I hope you all are well and happily busy. Please keep in touch. We all would love to hear from you. And remember that no matter how "boring" your news seems to you, it's always "news" to us! Take care.