Chip Hardwick graduated with his PhD in preaching from Princeton Seminary this past summer, four years after starting the program. In September he began working as the pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Bloomington, Ill., only two hours south of Evanston. "It's a downtown church with a brand new sanctuary, urban ministries and 1,700 members. Kellogg alums particularly welcome!"

This summer Chip travelled like it was the summer of 1993, when we graduated. He took trips to Morocco and Peru and still managed to sneak in a visit to the Bay Area in August. Chip says he keeps in touch with Ross Gatlin, who had a big 40th birthday party in Dallas in May. In fact, Ross wrote that his parents actually witnessed Chip's first sermon at his new church in Bloomington in September!

Ross and his family spent a month in Hawaii this past summer, splitting the time between Kauai and Maui, and "had a blast!" Ross grew a beard — "at the request of the kids of course. And the bonus was that my wife, Kristen, said she liked it so much that I could keep it for a while. This was the same girl that wanted to watch college football on our second date so I should have expected it!" Ross Brison, their "smart, energetic, and talkative" son, will turn 5 this December. Lilly Rose, their newest addition, recently turned 2. "They are little angels at this stage."

As for his career, Ross feels his 40th birthday milestone precipitated his own version of a mid-life crisis. After a string of successful deals at two private equity firms that he founded, the opportunity to create his own private equity franchise presented itself this past summer through a series of portfolio realizations. His new firm, Prophet Equity, leverages the experience and track record of his prior investment partnerships to continue identifying strategically viable, but underperforming, companies where significant future value creation opportunities exist. Ross promises more on the new venture when he sends out an announcement regarding the formal launch.

Brett Bonthron '93 kicking back at the 2007 Audi Hamilton Island Race Week in Australia
Pat Burns '93, wife Dorene and sons Brendan (2) and Logan (3 months) at Ken Freeman's Pinot Picnic
Chris Dean '93 and Lisi (Bailliere) Dean '94 with their children Eliza (7), Diana (5), and Nicholas (3) on Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands
Elizabeth "Buffie" Eilert Grewal '93 and son Avery at classmate Ken Freeman's Pinot Picnic
Heather Forsythe and Diana Chiou, both '93, in Yellowstone
Ken Freeman, Eric Menke, both '93, and Akiko Freeman
Ross Gatlin'93, wife Kristin, son Ross Brison, and daughter Lilly Rose in Maui
Ghia Griate '93 with her son Grant at Ken Freeman's Pinot Picnic
Dave Jahns '93 and family
Tina James '93 and husband Dom Grazioli in Valencia, Spain, watched the preliminary heats of the America's Cup races earlier this year (notice Larry Ellison's yacht in the background).
Eric Menke '93 and his family at classmate Ken Freeman's Pinot Picnic
Jean (Kircher) Mixer, Tina James, both '93, Tina's son Dominic, Jean's daughter Madison, Tina's daughter Lauren, Jean's daughter Maggie, and Jean's husband Charlie stand on San Antonio's Riverwalk when Jean's family came to visit Tina's family after Christmas last year.
Dave Mullarkey '93, wife Kim, and daughters Christina (3), Jillian (6) and Kara at Ken Freeman's Pinot Picnic
Scott Powder '93, guitarist for the band Mid Life Crisis, demonstrates his rock star alter-ego.
Martin Trautschold '93, wife Julie, and daughters Olivia, Sophie, and Cecily on a family trip in Colorado

In addition to keeping up with Chip Hardwick, Ross also speaks frequently with Scott Sedlik and Marc Sznajderman, who "are moving and shaking on opposite coasts" (Washington and N.Y., respectively). Ross is really looking forward to our next reunion so he can catch up with everyone.

Bill Falconer and his family continue in full throttle with Sharon busy running from one sports venue and school to the next with Elizabeth (17), Wiley (14), Kelsey (11) and J.D. (9). Most remember Elizabeth running around TGs and accompanying Bill to the basketball courts. She is now a very accomplished student and soccer player, trying to figure out where to go to college as she approaches her senior year — ouch. On the work front, about four years ago Bill started Midtown Consulting Group, which focuses on management and strategy advisement and has grown to more than 10 employees (midtowncg.com).

From time to time Bill sees classmates in Atlanta, including Scott Sanders (at multiple bars), Kevin Kowalski, Dick Grapenthin, Walt Jenkins, Charlie Thompson, Jay Williams and others. Stuart Burgdoerfer and wife Laney just moved out of Atlanta as did Dale Zeh. Over the years Bill has seen Luke Parker in Australia, Peter Harrison in London, John Sheputis in Houston, Don Grennon and Eric Petrosinelli in New York, Steve Gustafson in San Diego, Jon Bellman in Charlotte, Todd Manifold in the Cincinnati airport, Ed Miller recruiting at HBS, Keith Olsen at Bill's community pool while Keith was visiting his sister, Jim Owens in Minneapolis, Dave Roberts in D.C., Greg Smith in Atlanta, and Chris Stent in Atlanta. Bill says to give him a call if you come to Atlanta: 404.213.9993.

Miho Saito recently saw Ghia Griarte, who was in New York on business, "for the first time since Roman Pongracz's wedding!"

Hans Lidforss and his wife, Irina, welcomed their first daughter, Nicole Sophie, on Aug. 10. It's been a busy — and exciting — year for the family, who recently moved to their new home in Oakland Hills. On the work front, Hans resigned from HP and joined the private equity firm Cerberus in September, and he is "very excited about the opportunity." Irina continues to work as a bio-tech/pharma recruiter, though she is currently taking a well-deserved maternity leave.

Margy Stratton and Greg Norman '94 also welcomed a daughter recently. They had their third daughter just after Thanksgiving in '06, so their kids are now 6 , 4 and 1. The family continues to live in Mequon, Wisc., just north of Milwaukee, and they are about to move from an 1865 farmhouse to a late 1800s farmhouse that Greg is in the process of renovating. Greg is enjoying running his real estate businesses, Butler-Chase Fine Homebuilders, Peloton Properties and WiRED Construction, but wishes he had time to do more bike races with his cycling team. Margy went back to Briggs & Stratton after maternity leave, but she recently left there to work on starting something of her own. She continues to stay busy, as well, with her work on the boards of the Wisconsin Humane Society, the United Way of Greater Milwaukee and one of the local hospital systems, as well as with projects for the kids' school and an interesting organization called Milwaukee Women Inc., which works to get more businesswomen into executive and board positions in Wisconsin.

Margy has been focused in the entrepreneurial area for the past six years, spending three years co-founding, growing, and then selling BlackBerry Made Simple, a BlackBerry software company. BlackBerry Made Simple uses its online video tutorial library to help both large and small clients with their BlackBerry training needs. It serves all sizes of clients, ranging from 20,000 BlackBerry users to just one. Margy also co-authored three books on the BlackBerry and is busy finishing three more on the newer BlackBerry models.

Martin Trautschold and his family love living in Ormond Beach, Fla., and have been there just over two years after having lived in Michigan since Kellogg. His wife, Julie, is now a family-practice physician and has been in practice almost two years. She is very busy and loves being a doctor. Their oldest daughter, Sophie, is entering the 11th grade and loves the cello and drawing; Olivia is going into ninth grade and likes horseback riding; Cecily is in second grade and enjoys playing outside and horseback riding in particular.

Scott Powder has been with Advocate Health Care in Chicago since graduating from Kellogg and was promoted to senior vice president for strategy and growth at the end of last year. Scott is also coming up on the 14th anniversary of his wedding to his wife, Karen (1993 was a big year for Scott), and has two daughters, Maddie (9) and Jocelyn (3). In his spare time, Scott is the guitarist for Mid Life Crisis, a rock band with a growing following in the north and northwest suburbs of Chicago. They just did a gig at the Cubby Bear North in Lincolnshire, Ill., in September. BTW, his band's Web site is at midlifecrisisrocks.info in case anyone is interested seeing them perform!

Paul Craig has seen highs and lows with Rudy Project, which designs and manufactures hi-tech sunglasses, goggles, helmets and accessories. "Rudy Project was in the yellow for 10 days and all but certain to win the tour ... then ouch!" Paul's offer is still good to classmates who want to score a Rudy Project at below wholesale. Go to rudyprojectusa.com, click on "other info," then "leader," and enter password: kabrio. E-mail Paul@rudyprojectusa.com with questions. The company is growing and its biggest competitor, Oakley, was recently acquired by Luxottica, "which opened the floodgates for IBs and vulture capitalists (where are you Cesare?) to call." Paul has been dating Sarah Silver for a year now. She is a triathlete and an engineer "who keeps me young and on my toes." In fact, she helped inspire Paul to do a half marathon, for which he is currently training. Paul stays in touch with Jim Owens, who "shows the Kellogg spirit every day by teaching us that when you set your mind to something you can prevail." Paul says that he can't wait to see everyone at our 15th!

Tina James is still living in San Antonio and working for H-E-B Grocery Co., where she started straight out of Kellogg. Today, she is the senior vice president of human resources, "and it can be quite a challenge since we have 64,000 'partners,' which is what we call our employees. I got very lucky and found the perfect place for me right out of school." Since leaving Kellogg, Tina got married (to Dom Grazioli, who among many other things is an international trap shooter — the 2007 U.S. national champ, in fact) and had two kids, Dominic (9) and Lauren (6). She still stays in touch with the same wonderful group of friends: Jean (Kircher) Mixer, Sandy (Pickel) Barger, Susie Belgrad-Hayes, Suzanne Beitel and Vickie (Chan) Lents. "These days, we only get together about once a year, but it's one of the highlights of my year."

Chris Dean, his wife Lisi (Bailliere) Dean '94, and their children Eliza (7), Diana (5) and Nicholas (3) are still living in San Francisco. Lisi is doing well as a mom now that she retired from Merrill Lynch. Chris recently started a hedge fund with an old high school friend, Carlo Cannell, and abandoned the technology world. They just launched their Web site: texadacapital.com. Chris regularly sees Ken Freeman, Bill Cummings and John Christakos, "who is rapidly becoming a furniture design and manufacturing mogul" (bludot.com).

Alix Mayer is running a small fund in memory of her environmentalist mom, called the Rudd Renewable Energy Education Fund, or Rudd Fund for short. The fund's first project was recently completed in Boulder, where they built a wind energy exhibit, started a wind energy curriculum for school-aged children, and installed an electricity-producing wind turbine. Alix had to give up her full-time career in high-tech strategy due to illness, but she has mostly recovered using diet and natural means. Alix is also a part-time nutritionist and plans to begin a master's program in nutrition soon. Her husband, Dan, and their twins (5) also keep her pretty busy!

Last year Alix worked on a strategic plan for her local parents' club with fellow Kellogg grads Tammy Crown '96 and Teresa (Zepeda) Kelleher '92. "It was a small committee and it was very funny that half of us were Kellogg grads!" Last spring Alix and her family vacationed in Carmel with Wendy Will and her family. Alix also sees Buffie Eilert Grewal and her son, Avery, occasionally.

Dave Jahns and his family are doing well and living in New Canaan, Conn. His healthcare private equity firm, Galen Partners (galen.com), was recently relocated to Stamford, Conn. "I welcome the opportunity to co-invest with fellow Kellogg grads," he says. In fact, Dave did a medtech deal with Stuart Randle '90. Dave would love to hear from anyone passing through Stamford.

Terry (Tanguay) Steele just returned from a great vacation in Wyoming with her husband, Tim, and sons Mark (10) and Luke (8). Terry finally got to go whitewater rafting — something she has wanted to do for a long time. They also hiked in the Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks. "Yellowstone was awesome!"

Terry's other news is that she is "back in the working world." She is now the executive director of the Airway Management Education Center. The company is owned by three physicians who are leaders in emergency airway management ("think breathing, not air traffic control"). They offer The Difficult Airway Course throughout the country. "The exciting part is launching a new company to take this training to the EMS community. It is great to be able to use my marketing and healthcare management skills in an endeavor that helps save lives. It's tough getting back into the game, but I was SO ready!"

Donna Gilbert recently left The Upper Deck company, where she was VP of operations, and relocated to the Bay Area to spend time with her family. Her husband had been commuting to San Jose for more than a year, and "it was time for all of us to be in one place." Donna found a position pretty quickly with Apple, so "I am moving from managing contract manufacturing of baseball and Yu-Gi-Oh! cards to managing contract manufacturing for laptop computers. A bit of a change for sure!" Donna began her work at Apple this summer and "so far, so good. It is fun to work at a place where everyone loves what they do and loves the product." Her kids, Alex (9) and Carley (7), are looking forward to new beginnings and to having parents regularly in the same place at the same time!

I (Heather Forsythe) caught up with Brett Bonthron over lunch this past summer. Brett is working in enterprise sales at Microsoft and is also an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at the University of San Francisco, Masagung Graduate School of Management. Brett recently returned from Australia, where he participated in the 2007 Audi Hamilton Island Race Week as part of the Escaped Aussies team (escapedaussies.com). Every year they get together and sail at an international regatta or two. They call their network of friends the "Escaped Aussies" because they all have some kind of connection with Australia. Whenever they visit an international regatta they select a worthwhile local charity to support. At Hamilton Island they raised money for Yalari, an organization that promotes the education of indigenous youth.

I also caught up with a bunch of classmates at Ken Freeman's Second Annual Pinot Picnic in August, hosted by Ken and his wife, Akiko, at their winery (freemanwinery.com). Thank you, Ken and Akiko! Krissy (Bjorkolm) Struckman, her husband Doug Struckman '92, and their three kids were able to stop by for a couple hours before heading back to Chicago later in the day. Pat Burns was there with his family, as were Eric Menke and Dave Mullarkey. Ghia Griarte brought her son Grant and Buffie Eilert came with her son Avery. While Melchor ("Trix") Guerrero and Jennie Guerrero were in the Philippines (where they live with their six children and where Trix is the head of the capital markets division of the Philippine Stock Exchange), some of Trix's family were able to attend. His father, Miguel "Mike" Guerrero '55, joined the festivities, along with two of Trix's six brothers, Michael and Martin. Interestingly, Trix's parents both got their MBAs from Kellogg; in fact, that's where they met! Mark Andersen '92 and Henry Alfaro '94 were also in attendance, as were quite a few others I know I'm leaving out (my apologies).

My big news is that I just accepted a job with SanDisk. After being in business for 20 years, the company's focus has shifted from B2B to B2C, and they need someone to really build a consumer brand. Flash memory cards are becoming a commodity — and many don't even realize SanDisk makes MP3 players (Sansa, the No. 2 player after the iPod). I'm really looking forward to the marketing challenge!

Before starting my job, however, I decided to take in a trip to recharge my batteries. I'm currently in the midst of a tour of five national parks. I started with a trip to Yosemite with 14 friends, including Mark Andersen '92 and Diana Chiou. Next Diana and I visited Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks (I agree with Terry that these are both amazing, must-see places). In addition to hiking, Diana and I had a lot of great wildlife sightings: a grizzly bear, three moose, two red foxes, a coyote, a bunch of elk and deer, and hundreds of buffalo. Next I join Sumin Eng in Bryce and Zion.

Thanks to all of you who sent me updates and photos – and please keep them coming. Also, mark your calendars for May 2-4, 2008, and plan to attend our 15th (gulp!) reunion in Evanston. Encourage others to go as well! Looking forward to seeing you then.