2005
— Full-Time
Well, the Class of 2005 has been busy for the past few years, so we haven't had time to share any of our incredible accomplishments. We're back though, stronger than ever, with lots of updates. Keep them coming, Class of 2005! Remember, our five-year Reunion is coming up in 2010. Can you believe it?
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Scott and Carla Benigni, both ’05, with baby Henry |
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Tiago ’05, Karla and baby Yasmin Garjaka |
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Dee (DeFoe) Grein ’05 and John Grein and daughter Sofia Grace |
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Glenn, Guillen & Christine (Turcuato) Gutierrez ’05 |
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Baby Max and Adam Kaufman ’05 |
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From left: Rochana, Aanya, Sam ’05 and Ria Mehta |
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Juan Fagalde, Gloria Rossi ’05, Victoria Fagalde and Eugenio Fagalde |
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The Shah family: Tej, Jayen, and Sahana Shah ’05 |
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Mark Smith, baby Claire and Amy Stewart ’05 |
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Christina Wu ’05 and son Michael |
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Lauren Hammer, son Curtis, Steve Hammer ’05 and daughter Celeste |
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Stuart Perez writes from beautiful Costa Rica: "Last year I left investment banking in New York to return to my native Costa Rica and open an analytical support services company, PerMo Associates. I've enjoyed every second of entrepreneurial life and look forward to this new challenge. I also look forward to connecting with fellow Kellogg alums as I seek to grow my business. For those who remember my twins' birth in Evanston, they (5) are huge and healthy. Costa Rica has allowed my children to develop their language skills; now they are fluent in Spanish with a Costa Rican accent. Kellogg alums are welcome anytime in Costa Rica! Tour guide included." Thanks for the offer, Stuart. After this awfully cold U.S. summer, you may become the new Kellogg hotel in Central America.
For six months, Daniel Custodio has been touring the U.S. and performing his one-man show, "Hooked," at hundreds of universities. In April, he won the SoundBites Poetry Festival at Broadway's Roy Arias theatre and won his second consecutive slam master competition at the National Poetry championships in August. Daniel has received $25,000 in grants to expand his poetry program in the Richmond public schools and has also raised enough money to feed a family in need for an entire year via his End Hunger Poetry Slam. His second published book, Hooked, has sold more than 1,000 copies independently and he is working on his third book (untitled as of yet). For more information on Daniel, please visit thepoetdaniel.com.
Our favorite kickball players and comedians, Joanna '07 and John Hamilton, left the Windy City and moved to San Francisco in January. John is working with QuinStreet, an online media company where he is a marketing director in the home services group. Joanna is working for Diamond Foods as an associate brand manager. John and Joanna send a message, "We love San Francisco, but miss our friends in Chicago."
Jeff Turk writes: "I got married last year to Susie Yang in Austin, Texas. Susie and I met while I was a student at Kellogg. In attendance were Federico Cantu, Mickey and Alisha Fisher, Julio and Marisa Torres, Will Nolen '04 and Jeff Judy '04. Ed Schneider also visited on our wedding weekend."
Chris Vance left the wonderful world of brand management at P&G in Cincinnati, Ohio, and moved back to the Big Apple. He is a managing director at a company called ZAG, a division of BBH.
Scott Benigni and Carla (Yarger) Benigni are thrilled to announce the birth of their son Henry Thomas on June 13.
Sameer Mehta made the big move to India with twin daughters Aanya and Ria (1), started a seed fund (Atlas Venturez), a boutique advisory (Atlas Advisory) and took over as the chief operating officer of a hospital chain, Dr Mehta's Hospitals. Sam writes, "Rochana still puts up with me — though at times I do stretch it thin with being very busy."
Amy Stewart and Mark Smith '06 welcomed Claire Lillian Smith on Aug. 30. The family lives in Wilmette, Ill.
Adam and Paula (Abraham) Kaufman and their son Max Elliott (1) moved out of Manhattan up to a house in Chappaqua.
Debbie (Marshall) Merovitz says that son Jack Merovitz celebrated his first birthday in September with lots of Kellogg friends in Chicago.
Carolyn (Glabe) Noble and Andy Noble report, "We are happy to share that our son Benjamin was born in July. He's doing well and we're enjoying every minute with him!"
Christian Walters and family write with international news. Christian writes: "I'm the managing director of our Harley-Davidson Japan subsidiary based in Tokyo. We are responsible for sales, marketing, and business development and have over 200 dealers in the network here. Japan is our third-largest market after the U.S. and Canada. Kristin (Stanton '04), Joseph (2) and I relocated to Tokyo." Christian is currently racking up the frequent flyer miles commuting back and forth to the U.S. Is there a Kellogg Harley discount, Christian?
Sahana (Behera) Shah works in marketing at Abbott Vascular, a medical device company in the Bay Area, and lives with her son Jayen Shah (1).
Tiago Garjaka updates: "Karla and I had a baby this summer: Yasmin was born on July 7 and she is the cutest baby ever."
Adrian Ramos and Patricia Cusi happily announce the March 17 birth of their daughter, Emma Georgina Cusi Ramos.
Arnaud Violland is living in Toulouse and doing consulting work at Airbus. Joost van Rens is based in Barcelona and running an optical retailer under the +Visión brand name.
Gloria Rossi and family are living in Buenos Aires, and have had two children since graduating from Kellogg. Gloria is working to grow the family-owned dry-cleaning business, Tintorerías Dolphin System.
Lauren and Steve Hammer have two beautiful children, Celeste and Curtis. Steve writes, "Celeste (3) already recognizes the word Kellogg, mostly from the absurd number of purple T-shirts I own from my time there. On the professional side, I've just launched a new site called Stir as chief audience developer. It's the second site I've launched in the last 12 months. Stir is about helping people find great places to go and new and interesting people to join them. We use a recommendation engine that matches people to the places and parties they are most likely to find interesting. Even this early, we're excited with the response to helping people have better nights out."
Greg Benz has been a photographer since 2000. He established CarbonSilver Photography (CarbonSilver.com) to do weddings, portraits, and fine-art photos of city skylines during his free nights and weekends. Greg's full-time job involves strategic business planning for pacemakers/defibrillators at Boston Scientific.
Christina Wu and Martin Bunzendahl welcomed Michael Wu Bunzendahl to the family on January 13.
Karianne Paolo, Rachel Goldstein, and Jami Totten decided to spend the last days of summer touring Turkey and the Mediterranean coast.
Dee (DeFoe) Grein and John Grein are pleased to announce the birth of their beautiful daughter Sofia Grace, born on Aug. 14.
A group of Kellogg alumni gathered in Chicago in early June for John Nichols' wedding, including from L.A. and San Francisco. Some of the attendees met up at Feast on June 6. Among them: Rachael Lester, Ryan Graham, Mike Wright, Scott Benigni, Carla Benigni, Devin Murray, Kaya Murray, Brandon Davito, Lauren Thal, Meranee Naaman, Charles Naaman, Sarah Adams, Lisa Graham and Cherie Yu.
Former Dean Dipak Jain and Dean Emeritus Donald Jacobs visited DenuoSource's facility in Hyderabad, India, on Aug. 13. Kellogg alums Amrit Kirpalani and Rahul Chowdhury co-founded DenuoSource with the idea of delivering analytics services via a global delivery model to help bridge resource constraints and talent gaps for Fortune 500 firms. Dean Jain addressed DSers (DenuoSource associates) by speaking about the marketing analytics industry, its inception, and the value of analytics in the current global scenario. Both Dean Jain and Dean Jacobs generously shared their experiences during a Q&A session with DSers. Rahul says: "DenuoSource, in a very real way, is a product of Kellogg: the experience, the network and the friendships accelerated the ability to get the company off the ground and continue to achieve our vision today."
DenuoSource (denuosource.com) is a global analytics firm trusted by leading Fortune 500 companies to help improve decision-making processes via expertise in data analysis, economics, and statistics, and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. |
