Kevin O’Shaughnessey EMP-63, wife Briana and daughter Cristina
	Greer O’Brien EMP-63 took some time to enjoy the beautiful city of Chicago for a weekend with her family
	Ken Sandifer EMP-63 married Erin Turley on Aug. 14 at Erin's parents' home in Napa, Calif.
	Mikenzie Steffens-Sari, Ann Marie Peluso Vietti and Kim Jude, all EMP-63, in Chicago

EMP-63

Following a year-long engagement, Ken Sandifer married Erin Turley on Aug. 14 at Erin’s parents’ home in Napa, Calif. The wedding was attended by classmates Paul Del Gallo and Clem Johnson (along with Clem’s wife Catherine). Ken and Erin spent their honeymoon in the Grand Cayman Islands, and are living in the Dallas area.

Ronald Razmi and Pani Assandi were married on July 31 in Dana Point, Calif. Their wedding was a dreamy one at the Ritz Carlton overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Laguna Beach and was attended by more than 450 people. Ronald writes: “Although a few of our classmates were supposed to be there, John Pryor and his wife Lori actually made it and made the event much more special. When we first started planning our wedding, we both decided we wanted an intimate wedding with family and close friends, but once the families got involved, it was no longer our decision.” Ronnie and Pani met last year on a blind date while Ronnie was spending a few days in Los Angeles. She is a native of L.A. and went to UCLA for her undergraduate work and Boston University for her graduate studies. Pani works in private wealth management at UBS in New York. Ronnie convinced her to move to New York this year, so she is trying to get used to life in New York, a new work environment, a new apartment and a new husband. She is doing great with the adjustment, and Ronnie is feeling far more optimistic with his new partner in life in New York.

James Park and Mimi Ahn got hitched July 3 at Half Moon Bay Golf Links in Half Moon Bay, Calif. The day was sunny and warm, even for the locals. Bill Dirkes, Eishin Takahashi, Sasha Vaisblat, Safak Guven and Rodney Mayers helped heat up the event even more.

Kim Jude, Ann-Marie Peluso Vietti and Mikenzie Steffens-Sari got together for their usual fall shopping trip. On an unrelated note, shoe stores, spas and restaurants in the greater Chicago area have now listed themselves as free of the recession.

Bill Dirkes has started a new company called Sentral Clinical Research Services. He is providing the infrastructure for physicians who want to offer their patients the option of participating in FDA-regulated studies. Bill’s firm provides all the services the physicians need without any out-of-pocket costs, so that all they have to provide is their expertise. It is a hassle-free way for a physician to stay at the forefront of medicine and boost income.

Tricia and Jim Lott went on vacation with Marta and Peter Granat in Italy in August. The clans got together for time in the sun with family and appreciation of the Italian countryside. Jim attempted to recite the entire script from “My Home in Tuscany” but drifted off. Rumors that riots in Greece were in any way related to Team C getting together are greatly exaggerated.

On Sept. 13, David Seematter was in Dallas for a conference and met Charles Thompson for dinner and drinks. There is no word on where “dinner” was, or what happened after the third drink. We are also not at all sure why Charles was there, as we expected him to be on the road, developing his arm for the upcoming Major League Baseball post-season. He doesn’t pitch for Texas, he just hits “refresh” on his Yahoo Sports Page a lot during the games.

Sumit Mather is still with JP Morgan. He moved over to a product strategy group two years ago. And earlier this year, he met up with Roger Gregory and Jon Baksht at a party thrown by Anand Subramanian to celebrate Anand’s son turning 1. Anand’s son was not allowed to attend because it was past his bedtime, and he would have demonstrated more sensibility than the four other attendees.

Paul Del Gallo met up with Sumit Mather, Roger Gregory and Jon Baksht while Paul was in Houston for a presentation. Paul asked if they could go to the best steakhouse Roger knew of in Houston. It was a fantastic trip to the Sizzler steakhouse for the early bird special.

In September, Eishin Takahashi’s company (headquartered in Japan) participated in Aluminum 2010 in Essen. Held every two years, this is the world’s largest aluminum conference, and just out of curiosity, they decided to compete for the European Aluminum Award 2010. Surprisingly, they won the award and are extremely happy.

Eishin writes: “This year, a total of 33 products were nominated for the award. The jury, chaired by Professor Laurens Katgerman of the Delft University of Technology (NL), announced five prize winners in the two sectors, industrial products and consumer products, in five categories. The jury awarded us the top award in production techniques for our typhoon chip melter and alloyer. Hopefully, this award will give us a lot of momentum.”

Rumors that “the fix was in” when Hans Van Wees called a secret meeting of the Dutch influential group are baseless. Those of us who went on the GIM trip saw Eishen’s technology in action. While not understanding for a single moment how it works, we can say it appears to turn trash into workable automobiles with a cast of people who appear to be from a James Bond movie.

This summer Greer O’Brien took some time to enjoy the beautiful city of Chicago for a weekend with her family. They started the weekend off by attending a Cubs game — rooftop party style! The Cubs won, which made sitting on a roof in 90-plus-degree heat somewhat more tolerable. The O’Brien clan spent two days and nights in the city, during which they went to Navy Pier, viewed fireworks, ate at Bubba Gump’s (the kids’ favorite), visited Millennium Park, went to the beach, walked the lakefront, visited the Hancock Observatory, went on an architectural river cruise, and of course, ate at Pizzeria Uno. They had a fantastic time together and the kids didn’t even complain TOO much about all the walking. It was also kind of cool when Greer realized that for the first time in 16 years, her kids can carry her luggage! For any of you wondering which weekend this was, again, the Cubs WON the game. We believe that only happened at one weekend home game this year. It didn’t help that Greer brought a goat to the rooftop viewing stand and had it turned away.

After bingeing on too many episodes of “Pinky and the Brain,” Rodney Mayers lost his mind and decided that working for a well-established and stable media company that bought a Silicon Valley startup just wasn’t exciting enough. So he started talking to small startups in the Valley and is now considering whether to run one of them, buy all of them, or chuck it and just finish the iPhone app that he and James Park are working on. We’ve learned that our dear Rodney is more unstable than we first imagined, so only time will tell. In typical EMP fashion, we’ll stick up for him when the police come and just say that, “He was a really nice man and we never saw this coming.” Oh and that iPhone thing is real. EMP-63 will be beta-testing it in December, but Rodney said not to tell anyone yet. We can’t reveal what it does but we expect the commercial “Need someone to tell you what to do and how you should think, and judge you? There’s an app for that.”

In August Ann-Marie Peluso Vietti accepted the position of controller of Rasmussen Inc., a for-profit college headquartered in Oak Brook, Ill. Rasmussen College is regionally accredited and a leader in online education, offering bachelor’s and associate’s degrees in more than 70 programs. Rasmussen also partners with leading universities around the country to provide online master’s and doctoral degrees. Rasmussen serves more than 15,000 students throughout the world, with the support of dedicated employees at campuses in five Midwest and Southeast states and offices in Chicago, Orlando and the Twin Cities area. Ann-Marie became interested in Rasmussen after applying for a “degree of individual concentration” in “Fashion Purchasing Hair Style Expertise Through Commentary as Opposed to Actual Interaction”.

Russell Hayworth spent the last two years in Hong Kong in strategy and business development for Thomson Reuters, but moved to Dubai to start the fourth leg of his Thomson Reuters around-the-world tour. His new role is to run the company’s Middle East and Africa region, which is turning out to be a great job. He is enjoying the incredible variety of being in a senior operational role — from strategy in the Gulf to broken air conditioners in sub-Sahara Africa! On the family front, he and Betsy have two little lads — baby Nate and Harry (2). Luckily, Betsy is keeping her sense of humor with all of her three boys and managing the family move. Russell now has mastered operating in several languages: Cantonese, Mandarin, Arabic, English and American. His accent is strongest in American.

Kevin O’Shaughnessey provides the following update: “Given the great business environment, I’ve launched a company with a partner to help independent physicians meet their financial goals and stay independent. We provide business services and consulting. And we’re happy to say that we have customers — even a paying one. Joke aside, it’s been fun and a roller coaster so far, and I want to thank our physician classmates who helped us — particularly Bill Dirkes and Ronnie Razmi. Brian Tilley was a huge resource and great friend. Last but not least, we’re headed out East for our five-year anniversary when we’ll visit with Brian and Hans — and I’m sure make a few EMP-63 toasts — during a D.C.-N.Y.-Vermont tour. Best wishes to my classmates.” Separately, Bill Dirkes, Ronnie Razmi and Brian Tilley have all denied speaking to Kevin since graduation.

Paul Del Gallo and Rafiq Mohammadi caught up for dinner in Chicago. Paul asked if Rafiq could take him to an authentic Southeast Asian restaurant, and was surprised when Rafiq said, “Sure, I know this great place called Sizzlers.”

Nikolaj Sjoqvist reports that work’s going well, offering huge amounts of variety recently. Second-to-last project saw him wearing hardhats and safety vests and talking to construction crews at the side of the road, and riding on some truly spectacular construction equipment (i.e. big). This increased his sense of manliness quite a bit. Current project sees him working with beanbag-furnished offices for several Manhattan media agencies. He has now (temporarily) turned into a metrosexual. The funny part of this prior update is we have not altered it at all. We think the funniest visual is Nikolaj in a hardhat and then Nikolaj as a metrosexual. We are curious whether the next update will have him in a police officer’s uniform and a full Native American headdress. Nikolaj also reports: “Family’s doing well . We recently spent time in the U.K. getting the kids baptized. They’re now ‘legit,’ and growing up too fast for my liking. Makes me feel old. I’m losing hair at the same pace they’re replacing teeth.”

Hari Vallurupalli has taken a position at NSL Sugars as president of international operations, an industrial group based in India. He is spending a lot of time in India, while his family still lives in Dallas. He is responsible for expanding the business through acquisitions, mostly in Brazil and Africa. He has been to Brazil twice in the last four months, and the country is unbelievable. He wishes we can gather a group and visit these places like the GIM trips to China and Japan. Hari also says he is looking forward to seeing everyone at the five-year Reunion in May. On an unrelated note: China and Japan have let Hari and his compadres know that if they return, the “Godzilla” imitations will have to stay home.

Polo Quintano and Ale have been in Spain for about a year and are loving it. They have traveled frequently around the country and are in awe of the beautiful places that are north, south, east and west of Spain. Every place is different and amazing. Professionally, the economic crisis in Spain is driving many changes in both the banking industry and at Barclays, but Polo is enjoying these challenges and his work. Separately, Polo confirms that he was uninvolved with the Spanish financial crisis, or with the Chilean performance at the World Cup for that matter.

Andrew Gillen reports he is moving into a new role at the bank. He writes: “We’re focusing more on business development within the federal government space, and I will be moving into a business development role (sales management, basically as the director of business development for the federal and international public sector in USB’s corporate payment systems division), leading our efforts to win new customers and introduce new(ish) payment applications to the federal government, as well as to the Canadian government, where we are one of two official acquisition card providers. Not sure how much I will be traveling up to Ottawa, but I like it up there. Several fairly major opportunities might have me up there quite a bit over the next couple of years.” On an unrelated note, Julian Wiles reports he would like Andrew to forget that he moved to Canada, and no, he doesn’t have an address, and no, you can’t just stop by. Really, he’s just settled in there.

Rosemary McGillicuty has decided to branch out into a new business enterprise based upon her massive social network’s feedback. It will be a combination travel, fashion and dining establishment. It will specialize in connecting people in Dubai, Brazil, Spain, England and France. She will lead trips to China and Japan, along with spa and shopping trips to Chicago. It will also provide party costumes of hard hats, metrosexual looks, police uniforms and Native American warrior chiefs. The cuisine will focus on sugar, steak and Southeast Asian food. She is looking for a new name after an Internet search revealed that the name “Sizzlers” was already taken.

 

A Kellogg reunion at James Park’s EMP-63 wedding. Pictured are Bill Dirkes, Sasha Vaisblat, James Park, Mimi (Ahn) Park, Safak Guven and Rodney Mayers, all EMP-63 except Mimi