1994

Hi all!

The class of '94 is back in the alleys of Kellogg World. Sorry for the conspicuous absence in the past few issues. Sometimes life gets in the way of generating the news. Also, frankly, sometimes the news doesn't come round. If you have never submitted anything, or if it has been a while, now is the time. Shoot me an e-mail.

With the Kellogg World deadline looming within a week, I sat down to my Sunday ritual of reading the New York Times Sunday Styles section and scanning the weddings to see if, by chance, I know anyone. Well, good thing I looked, for there I saw Tom Burchill! Join me in congratulating Tom on his Sept. 10 marriage to Margaret Nelson. In addition to this happy news, the announcement revealed that Tom is managing partner at SCIP Capital Management, part of the Silverfern Group, an investment bank in New York.

Ann Gnuse Diederich and her husband Dan welcomed a baby girl, Katie, on July 15. Yuko Suzuki and Karen Mak threw the baby shower. Chris Barnes and Melissa Edison Barnes '93 added a second son to their family in June. Edison Charles Barnes is the baby brother of Rowan and Adin. The five live in Denver, Colo. Sonal (Thakar) Rinello and her husband John welcomed baby Austin in June. He joins big brother James at home in Stamford, Conn.

The 2006 Kellogg Ryder Cup: Front, from left: Bill Rustico, John Montgomery, Gunter Seeger, Jim Schorr, Bruce Angus, Rick Patton, Graham Cook and Tom Barrett (all '94). Back, from left: Kevin Cook, Joe Lee, Greg Coleman, Nick von Moltke, Bill McIlwain, Bruce Wimberly, Jamie Sabatier and Jeff Winaker (all '94).

Nearby in Weston, Conn., Bruce and Alycia (Krentz) Angus are growing their four-year-old Kids U business. They have opened children's recreation facilities in Fairfield County, Conn., and will launch several new franchise locations this fall in Needham, Mass., Horsham, Pa., and Paramus, N.J. They are excited about the launch and invite any Kellogg alumni to stop in a facility with their children to play their kids will love it! Recreation is not just for kids in the Angus household. Since graduation, Bruce, along with 15 others from our class, have held an annual golf tournament — the Kellogg Ryder Cup. This year's event, the thirteenth of its kind, was held in North Carolina at Pinehurst. In Bruce's own words, "the courses were slowed down to a snail's pace as the various team and individual matches took place. Highlights included the loss of Gunter Seeger's clubs, the loss of nearly every match by Nick Von Moltke and Tom Barrett and some surprisingly great play by Kevin Cook." Regular participants in the KRC include: Graham Cook, Bruce Wimberly, Jeff Winaker, Jim Schorr, Bill McIlwain, Bruce Angus, John Montgomery, Jamie Sabatier, Bill Rustico, Scott Kelley, Rick Patton, Greg Coleman and Joe Lee. After 90 holes of golf, the Pinehurst event ended in a tie — to be broken at next year's tournament in Casa de Campo, Dominican Republic.

Karen (Jones) Mak lives in San Francisco and has been working in real estate for years now. She has had the good fortune of doing business with many Kellogg alumni, both from our class and others. She works with both residential and commercial properties and teaches a number of real estate investment courses. Her kids keep her busy too (Tyler, 6, and Sarah, 5). On Oct. 29 she hosts her seventh annual Class of '94 reunion for those in the Bay Area. Karen also shared this news from other classmates: Amit Choudhury got married in Chicago in July. He calls Chicago home, but spends much of his time on airplanes getting his financial software product off the ground.

Lou Ponticas returned to the Bay Area after active military duty in Bosnia. Alec Frisch moved east and is living in New Canaan, Conn. He is pursuing his passion for wine and heading up marketing for a wine-related company (Alec, help me out!) Scott Buckhout is working for Honeywell in France. He and his wife have three daughters.

From left: Jeff Cooper, David Lavine, Linda Anderson (all '94) and Julia Baer Cooper, hiking at Glacier Grey.

Jeff Cooper sent an update a while ago (thank you Jeff and sorry for the delay). Jeff lives in Arlington, Va., with Julia and their identical-twin 8-year-old girls, Sammie and Rachael. He has been with Capital One for seven years, the last four in Enterprise Risk Management. He sent a picture from a trip last year to Patagonia. Jeff writes, "My wife (Julia Baer Cooper) and I met David Lavine and Linda Anderson in Torres del Paine in Southern Chile for some amazing hiking. David and Linda have been living in Santiago, Chile for the last few years and Julia and I decided that this was a great excuse for a trip to South America. This from Linda: "David and I moved down to Chile from New York City about 2 years ago to enjoy living in another country for a while and to work on some new business ventures. For David it's been a startup that trades futures and for me it's meant continuing with management consulting for a while and then once Adyn, our little Chileno, was born, embarking on a translation company, Transword Communication with a Chilean friend. We've really enjoyed the lifestyle here — having our two boys Benjamin (3) and Adyn (2) raised in a bilingual environment and exploring Chile and the surrounding area. But at the same time we miss our friends and life in New York and so we plan to head back in 2007. We look forward to catching up with many of you then and hopefully seeing you at the next Kellogg reunion since we missed the 10-year. If anyone is thinking about a trip down to Chile before we leave, let us know."

I got a Linked In invite from Pete Wheelan a few months back. At that time he had recently joined Blurb as chief operating officer. Blurb enables individuals to publish their own books online and made Time magazine's list of 50 coolest Web sites in 2006! I am also connected through Linked In with Betsy (Day) Schmitt who is doing marketing consulting work currently with Intuit. I feel like I should sit down one evening and build up my network on Linked In. Does anyone out there use it? If so, you may hear from me.

MB Barron sent her first ever submission to Kellogg World. Let this be an inspiration to the rest of you. MB is living in Shanghai, China. Last winter, after 10 years with A.T. Kearney, MB left to take a bit of a sabbatical, spending much of the ski season in Deer Valley, Utah, and moving to Shanghai in the spring to study Mandarin full time. She is now looking for career opportunities in China (so if you know of anything). MB writes: "Kellogg continues to be an important network of dear old friends and exciting new connections." On a brief visit back to the United States, she caught up with Audi Melsbakas, Susie Silver, Kate Kusterman and Dan Malven '93. The week before leaving for Shanghai, she had dinner with all her San Francisco area Kellogg girlfriends including Julie Roberts, Betsy Day Schmitt, Catherine (Craighead) Briggs, Sally (Peters) Pofcher and Brandyn Criswell '96.

Susie Silver has branched out on her own and is running a small consumer marketing consulting company called the Argentum Strategy Group. Argentum is Latin for silver. In addition to drawing on her name, Susie is leveraging her years in consumer goods marketing at Kraft and Merisant. She recently ran into Phil Singh and Daryl Baltimore at a Room to Read event in Chicago. Chris Jogis left Pepsi late last year to join Mastercard as vice president of US brand development. In this role he heads up advertising and brand development and has a quick commute from home in Larchmont, N.Y.

Perhaps you saw classmate Dave Linda on ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" last February. Dave lives in Houston, and is president of SpaceMan Home & Office, a company that designs and installs closet systems. In January, the TV show filmed in Houston and approached Dave's company to do the closets and pantry for the new home. Dave and his staff were given six days to prepare and in six hours installed seven closets and a pantry in the new home. Dave said it was fun and exhilarating and especially meaningful since the family chosen for the new home had two daughters who have leukemia. One had a bone marrow transplant, which is close to Dave's heart — he was a bone marrow donor last year. Anyone in Houston needing closet work, check out Dave's company.

Suzy (Meier) DeLine '94 with sons Tyler and Matthew.

Suzy (Meier) DeLine writes with this update: "After seven years at Intel and three years of being full-time mom to Tyler (5) and Matthew (3), I've finally joined a startup as director of marketing. One of my former colleagues from Intel, who then worked to build Walmart.com, has started Little Grad, an easy-to-join, easy-to-use college savings service (like Upromise, but we let you use whatever 529 or college savings account you want)." Those thinking along these lines should check this out!

From the Kellogg alums in the media site: Philippe Blatter was recently named CEO of Swiss media company Infront Sports & Media, which controlled global broadcasting sales rights for the 2006 World Cup. Congratulations, Philippe!

I had the chance to catch up with some classmates this summer here in Boston. I spent a day at the beach with Dan Evarts and his family (wife Tray, kids Sayle, Tyler, Jackson and Jamie) and had dinner with Connie (Gute) Walsh and Patty (Ricciardelli) Sins who are practically neighbors in Wellesley and Weston, Mass., respectively. They often run into each other while spinning at the gym on the weekends. Connie manages Staples branded technology products, including ink, toner and shredders. She is coming out with a very cool compact shredder that should be on the shelves now. Patty is working for the Boston Globe on sales/home delivery related efforts.

That's all this time around.