EMP-63

Jim Lott and Paul Del Gallo caught up in Boston in early August. Drinks and laughing ensued at Club 23, the best steakhouse in town. Paul then pointed out the silliness of going to the best steakhouse in Boston ("It's like going to the best lobster restaurant in Omaha"). Mikenzie Stephens and Paul Del Gallo caught up in Boston so she could help Paul figure out what the heck he is doing. Mikenzie is always a lot of help. Dinner and drinks on the first evening with Paul's wife Heather was not nearly as productive as the sober lunch the next day.

	Sujit Bakre EMP-63 (right), and his wife Swati, Shruti (11) and Saarang (4) at Rocky Mountain National Park.
	Chris Brogan EMP-63 holding Maeve, and his wife Mireya, holding Knox
	EMP-63 alumni gathered in NYC, including (front row) Beth Eckenrode, Brian Tilley, Anand Subramanian, Paul Del Gallo, Second Row Mikenzie Stephens, Ronnie Razmi, Clem Johnson, Ann-Marie Peluso, Russell Hayworth, and Matt Barbera (Ann-Marie's Cousin).
	Kim Jude, Ann-Marie Peluso and Mikenzie Stephens, all EMP-63 at the Evanston reunion.
	Ann-Marie Peluso and Kim Jude, both EMP-63, spent a weekend in New York.
	Anand Subramanian, Clem Johnson, and Russell Hayworth, all EMP-63

Chris Brogan and Mireya are pleased to announce that Thomas Knox Brogan arrived just shy of a week early on Aug. 23 and made it into the world before the doctor could make it to the delivery room. Like his father, he'll test the patience of bureaucrats and use his middle name. For those of you in the stats business, Knox weighed in at 8 pounds, 6 ounces, and measured 20.5 inches. Mom is doing well despite a "doctorless" delivery. Big sister Maeve wonders why she can't hold him all the time and offers him all her toys.

Please note that those of us writing the Kellogg World update never, ever, play with birth announcements. The above is all from Chris. OK, we fixed some grammar.

Jason Allen was promoted to general manager of Cinergy Energy, where he oversees the plants in Texas and California. This is not only a great promotion for Jason, but a reason for him to claim he is "at the other plant" to everyone. In unrelated news Jason wants to let everyone know that he has bought a boat, and if anyone wants to go fishing, he is available Monday to Friday, 9 a.m to 5 p.m. Jason has also now become a Wolfpack fan. His son Andy has started his freshman year at North Carolina State to study biology with plans to attend medical school. Jason is just relieved he finished school before Andy started this fall. Julian Wiles has asked us to point out that he is also a Wolfpack fan, when they win. And an Ohio fan. And you get the point.

Steve Azzarello is now at his second job since Kellogg. This is nowhere near the record for our class, and he would point out that "has a job" is a category not everyone has been holding consistently since graduation. Steve works for Amcol International as director of business development, reporting to the CEO, Larry Washow, who is also a Kellogg alum. In this role, Steve leads M&A projects, market development and alliances with key strategic partners. He has had to go and find all the text from Strategic Alliances, Integrated Finance and Strategic Marketing, and was very pleased to find they seemed like they were new. His teammates from Team B claim they know why. Amcol International operates 68 facilities in Asia, Australia, Europe and North America, but they don't allow Steve around to many of them. He keeps asking, "What happens if I pull this lever?" which is only funny the first couple of times. He is also breathing easy that he has a 15-minute commute from home and hasn't yet had to move, despite the job changes.

Rosemary McGuillicutty has opened a new restaurant. She is continuing to hold her role as director of custodial engineers for the school system of Coryn, Wis., (as reported in the spring 2007 update). Many of you may remember she has a restaurant and bar in New York where several 63 alumni gathered (as reported in the fall 2006 update).

Rosemary and her new husband, Dima (see wedding announcement in the summer 2007 update), are franchising their idea and moving it south. She moved boldly and got past the advice of professors she asked (who in general responded, "What?"). They have opened a chain of restaurants. "R&D McGuillicutty's" will offer a New York City-Wisconsin-Irish-Russian traditional flavor in several outlets throughout Texas. Try the hot dish — it's amazing. Working on the theory that people will think the food is good where they see long lines to get in, R&D McGuillicutty has only two tables and three chairs in each restaurant. Come early. They don't take reservations.

The Houston contingency of Jason Allen, Nikolaj Sjoqvist, Roger Gregory and Sumit Mathur had dinner at R&D McGuillicutty's, the new restaurant in town this August. Jason had hot dish, Roger got the Borscht, Sumit had boiled cabbage and Nikolaj was thrown out for asking for Danish cheese instead of that Wisconsin stuff.

Yup, you send in your update without the name of the restaurant, this is what you get.

Chris Bernaur and Rodney Meyers had dinner in Atlanta in August where they caught up and started planning a vacation to Mikenzie's house. That's the actual note they sent in. In an unrelated story, Mikenzie Stephens has decided to announce that she has several dogs in her home, and they don't know who you are. Take your chances.

Russell Cravey (did somebody say Doctor?) and Rhonda Cliett married on July 4. Russell proposed on one knee in Tiffany's and then rented a catamaran to sail from Long Beach to Catalina Island, where they were married. Russell of course believes the fireworks and parade were all in his honor. Also, Russell is claiming that he makes and brings Rhonda her cup of coffee every morning and makes breakfast. That's not our "funny add-in" — he really wrote all that. We don't play with wedding announcements. He's also real sorry about that thing he said in class about coffee, and if everyone could forget to mention that near Rhonda, that would be just really great by him.

Paul Del Gallo is interviewing at, shoot, wait. He's joining — shoot. Hang on. He's consulting at — wait. He's not. Wait, no, he is. Paul's kind of doing a lot of stuff. More on Paul in the next update. That update may or may not include unemployment, being thrown out of the house and street busking with a harmonica.

Maureen Floeter is now the international jet setter in her new role, traveling as far as Bucharest, Romania. This has been an exciting adventure for her, especially as she thought the flight she was on was going to "A place you can rest, in Rome." Sorry, that's the best we had.

Safak Guven is busy consulting and working on business development projects. He is currently a physician consultant for the Joint Commission Resources and Joint Commission International organization. The Joint Commission organization is considered as the leader in the world for the healthcare quality. Safak is also an independent consultant/business development in healthcare and is one of the authors for the National Bariatric Surgery Guidelines that will be published by the endorsement of two associations: the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, and the North American Society of Obesity.

Honestly, though, how many of the class are authors of the National Bariatric Society Guidelines? When we put together our update, it's the same story every time from everybody: "I set medical guidelines used across the globe. I set hospital guidelines for governmental agencies." It's almost trite.

Brian Tilley (back turned), Jim Lott, Ken Sandifer, Hari Vallurupalli, Mikenzie Stephens, and Kevin O'Shaughnessey, all EMP-63, relax in one wing of CDG at the Evanston Reunion.

EMP-63 classmates include (seated): Marc Womack, Hari Vallurupalli, and Aldo Mancini (EMP-64); (standing) Sujit Bakre, Mikenzie Stephens, Julian Wiles, Hans van Wees, Roger Gregory, Rodney Mayers, Safak Guven and Kinesh Doshi.

Russell Haworth, Ronnie Razmi and Ann-Marie Peluso met at the rooftop lounge at 405 nightclub in Chelsea in August, where they sipped on Grey Goose vodka tonics and enjoyed the Manhattan skyline view. We have no idea how this is an "update" and not a description of every Wednesday evening.

Clem Johnson has been given a permanent faculty ID badge to the Allen Center as he keeps making visits to present to Kellogg on career strategies. After presenting in August, he and his wife Catherine later had dinner with Paul and Heather Del Gallo at La Luce in Chicago, where Paul groveled desperately for the badge.

Clem also caught up with Anand Subramanian in N.Y.C. this summer at Hill Country where they drank giant mason jars of beer. Again, we have no idea how this is an "update" and just a flashback to their Kellogg days. Oh, wait, we remember, they weren't missing a class for this.

Clem Johnson, Paul DelGallo, Mikenzie Steffens, Russell Haworth, Beth Eckenrode, Brian Tilley, Anand Subramanian, Ronnie Razmi, Abdo Abdo, Ann-Marie Peluso and her cousin, Matt Barbera, had dinner at Tao in New York City in July. This group was able to actually blend in, an unusual event for any Kellogg reunion. Afterward, they wandered through New York to get a drink "anywhere that would serve people of [their] caliber" following dinner. There were only a few places that would. Plans to catch up the next night were mightily agreed to with bold voices on the first night. The next evening by 5:30, every brave soul was too tired to even think about it.

Kim Jude visited Ann-Marie Peluso in July and continued the tradition EMP-63 girls' weekends, which include fine food and wine (dinners at Babbo and Mercer Grill). The tradition of credit card companies calling with concerns about their ratios of both per hour dollars spent and number of charges also continues. It turns out they will actually sell you more pairs of shoes than you have toes. Or neighbors.

Sujit Bakre and his family took their annual hiking trip, this time in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colo. The week-long trip also included visits to Pike's Peak and the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. They stayed at a log cabin just outside the Rocky Mountain National park. Vistas in RMNP were breathless (figuratively and literally, at 12,000 feet) and included arduous walks and rock climbing, yet energized everyone. Sujit just wished Miguel was at the top of the peak waiting to offer mojitos.

Sujit's wife, Swati, has been accepted as a full-time graduate student at Northwestern University. She will pursue a master's degree in counseling psychology for two years starting this fall and will be commuting to Evanston (right across from the Jacobs center). If your spouse goes to hairstyling school, you will inevitably have some funky hairstyles for a while, and will not be allowed to go to someplace to just have them "fix it." We collected a pool of cash to bribe Swati into giving Sujit some "cool little personality quirk or tics" while in psychology school, but she got all ethical on us.

When last we heard from Charles Thompson, Southwest Textiles was on the verge of closing due to a class action anti-dumping suit on China and distributors such as Southwest. Charles immediately regretted taking the "Learning About Myself and Others" and "Makers Mark Brand Exploration" electives as opposed to Entrepreneurial Law and the Global Initiatives in China classes at Kellogg. In April, the U.S. Department of Commerce ruled in favor of Southwest who then reopened their distribution facilities in Memphis and Charlotte. They still have facilities in Los Angeles, Dallas and Mexico. We have explained to Charles that Mexico is a country, not a city, and if he can't narrow down the facilities location any more he will never get the shipping right. He mumbled something inappropriate.

In a move that can be best compared to walking into a casino and putting the mortgage down on "Red 63" at roulette, Charles has opened another business as well. Following his dream to acquire real estate (besides the dog house he is constantly in), Charles opened a real-estate management startup in Dallas and will soon open offices in Houston and San Antonio. He is working 15-hour days and having the time of his life.

Michele Azar has accepted a position within Best Buy's internet growth group. Her responsibilities include crafting the Web 2.0 strategy for the enterprise and creating a portfolio of strategic growth options viewing the Web as a platform. Michele has led the way engaging and educating the company on Web 2.0 as a cultural transformative force and growth opportunity. She continues to tap into the global network she established whole at Kellogg. Yossi Vardi, (chairman of International Technologies and founder and creator of the popular instant messaging program ICQ) has played an instrumental role in introducing Michele to Web 2.0 pioneers and the "un-conference" format emerging across the globe.

Brian Beeler has accepted a position at TAP Pharmaceutical. Brian is senior counsel for commercial and R&D, including licensing. This is a legal department role. All of you who are contacting Brian to have him get a license for your "special hangover cure all," which is really a Bloody Mary with extra vodka, are not using anyone's time well. And no, pharmaceutical attorneys do not give out samples. Ever.

Jon Pryor and Ronnie Razmi now work in the same office at McKinsey. This is particularly humorous considering the refused to sit next to each other in class, at lunch and after hours. That McKinsey office now has the highest concentration of Kellogg Executive MBA/doctors in the world. We don't think they are tracking that data though.

Eishen Takahashi is busy setting the record for the most locations visited in a short period of time. He hit Japan and South Korea (for 12 hours), New Zealand (for 15 hours), China, Switzerland, Germany (for two hours), Italy and five or six U.S. states. He left Japan around 3 p.m for South Korea, changing airplanes in South Korea en route to New Zealand. Then, he took a domestic flight in New Zealand, arrived at the destination around 2 p.m. (the day after he left Japan) and went directly to a three-hour meeting. Eishen stayed in downtown New Plymouth (the city where "The Last Samurai" was taped) that night and left for South Korea around 6 a.m., arriving around 8 p.m. He stayed one night and left for Japan around 8 a.m., killed seven or eight hours at Narita (international airport in Japan) and left for Shanghai that evening. Eishen points out that he wanted to try out for "The Last Samarai" as an extra, but he was too scary to keep on.

Pradep Nair has been given global responsibility of life sciences practice with his current employer. He spends one week per month in Europe and has traveled to Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Belgium and Holland. In September he plans to go back to Switzerland, Ireland and Germany. Pradep also took a vacation with his family to Taj Mahal in India last June.

Sumit Mathur has taken up a new role within JP Morgan as director of technology for commercial card services. It is an exciting new business that he hopes will grow from billions to trillions very soon. His team and almost everyone he work with happens to be in, of all places, Chicago. So he is usually building Hilton points at the Palmer House downtown on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. He mentioned the Houston contingent (Jason Allen, Nikolaj Sjoqvist, Roger and Sumit) recently met up after six months of "planning." Roger had just recovered from a biking mishap in Colorado (Sujit denies all involvement) and seemed well put together. Nikolaj has convinced his superiors at McKinsey that his other boss (wife) would be extremely inconvenienced if the Sjoqvists had to move from Houston to Atlanta, and he remains a Houstonian for the time being. The group plans to meet monthly for the foreseeable future. For the next meeting, more gentlemanly sporting activities (like drag racing) are planned.

Ellen Siebenborn-Forsyth was promoted to director of category management at General Mills. Ellen didn't specify what went into this new job, but we speculate that it involves the following tasks: making sure frosty Lucky Charms stay magically delicious, tickling the poppin' fresh dough man, styling Betty Crocker's hair, stacking Cheerios on paper clips, testing Haagen Dazs ice cream to ensure it is the best, imitating the Green Giant's "ho, ho, ho."