1993

Rep: Heather Forsythe
950 Shorepoint Court, #104
Alameda, CA 94501
Tel: 415.987.5645
heforsythe@gmail.com

About two years ago, John Tiefel moved from Dubai to Zurich, where he's a director at McKinsey & Co. Switzerland. Now he and Alberto Manzone are neighbors. He writes, "It's so funny. We only noticed that by comparing the address on our X-mas cards!" Highlights for John over the past year include a safari and some cool mountain climbing.

Margy Stratton joined the North American Kellogg Alumni Council. She was nominated for a two-year term, and is excited to spend a few days in Evanston for meetings twice a year and will be working regularly with the Kellogg Alumni Club of Milwaukee.

Margy and her family are busier than ever. She and husband Greg Norman '94 are driving more to their three daughters' activities and sports than ever before, and they love being a part of all the action. She comments: "I was lucky enough to get a day away last fall and flew to Boston to meet Leticia Ponce and Marcela Posada for lunch. It was such fun to pick up where we left off. The last time we'd all been together so many years ago at a Kellogg Reunion!"

Kurt Sollod was in Boston for years, then in Paris for a couple years. Now he's living in Greenwich, Conn., where he founded a software company about five years ago, and has been running that ever since.

Mike Denzel sends his regards from Singapore, where he and his wife Kal '92 and children (Jack, 13 and Maya, 11) have lived since 2006. Immediately after Kellogg, Mike spent 12 years with the NBA, with stops in Geneva, Paris and Hong Kong. He left in 2005 after the first NBA China games and hung out his own shingle. He soon realized that consulting wasn't the gig for him, however. So, he set up a youth basketball program coaching kids. The club now operates out of three venues in Singapore and recently celebrated their fifth anniversary.

Mike comments, "I love running my own small business. Of course, wearing shorts and a polo shirt to work and spending most of my time in a gym teaching kids is a pretty good deal. Main challenge now is formulating an exit strategy. Anyone want to buy a sports business in Asia in a few years?"

His wife Kal keeps him plugged into the corporate world. Two years ago, she made a career change and put her networking skills to the test. After stops with P&G, IMD and YPO, she is now pulling it all together in executive search with Russell Reynolds. Her focus is on consumer and education. Mike adds, "One of these days, she will convince me to get on LinkedIn." In the meantime, you can find Mike at mdenzel@denzelgroup.com or his website at fastbreak.com.sg.

Ken Freeman passed through Singapore and Mike and Kal joined him for a wine tasting dinner to promote his Sonoma valley wines. Mike highly recommends Ken's Pinots…and looks forward to our 20th reunion next year.

Alki Economou, husband Konstantinos Vossos, their two kids, and two dogs moved to Madrid, Spain in September. She writes, "We love it here, it's beautiful!" Last summer, they vacationed in Haute Nendaz, Switzerland, where the family went trekking in the mounts at 2,850 meters!

Irma De Hoyos wonders, "Who else is getting ready for college reunions?" She is excited to go to her 25th year Princeton reunion, visiting with her son Scott (3) and her husband Oswaldo. Now a professional seller on Amazon with a growing business, Irma is able to travel as much as she wants. She adds, "Yup, that's the life!"

Bob Kunkler sent his update from Dublin, where he was meeting with his European leadership team. Bob took over sales and marketing for Abbott's molecular testing business, which includes infectious disease, genetics, and oncology testing. He comments, "It's a fun and dynamic space, especially with the rapid development of companion diagnostics and personalized medicine!" The job brought him back to the Chicago area with Reaney and their three children, Erin (14), Sydney (10), and Thomas (8), after spending seven years in Princeton, N.J. Bob adds, "We miss our pool and the Jersey shore but are adjusting and settling into our home in Wilmette."

Jeff Walsh had a great opportunity in January to connect with a few friends on their new annual ski trip. Jeff joined Jim Maffezzoli, Dale Zeh, Paul Eskenazi and Andy Jolls in "tearing it up (and our knees) on the slopes in Steamboat Springs (despite the historically low snowfall totals), overlooking Lake Catamount (just outside of Steamboat)."

Jeff joined a new startup biotech company (bluebird bio) as COO. He writes, "We are focused on developing gene therapy treatments for various rare and severe genetic diseases with the potential to provide cures with a single treatment by replacing defective genes in a patient's own cells with normally functioning genes. Cool stuff that has so far shown great promise in human clinical trials." Jeff's wife Connie Walsh '94 continues to thrive at Staples in marketing and product development roles and their three girls (Katie, 12, Abi, 10, and Callie, 4) are all doing well.

Ken Yager and his wife Cary remain in Park Ridge, Ill., and Ken is still a partner at MorrisAnderson working on middle market turnarounds. Ken sits on the advisory board of several business service clients that he saved over the last four years. He writes: "Other than that, it seems like everything is constantly changing. The distressed company industry is undergoing its own changes in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Never a dull moment."

"Son Oley is a junior in high school and is looking into colleges that will support his Chinese language and communications skills. He looks like me, but he has a totally different skill set and direction in life. Oley and CJ (a freshman) just completed a year of wrestling – another thing I can claim no credit for helping them with. I work out so they don't kill me when they are demonstrating their latest moves on me."

After five years traveling the world for her company, Brown-Forman (think Jack Daniel's and Southern Comfort), Ingrid Gentry returned to Louisville, Ky., in December to take a job as head of strategy for the company's commercial operations, reporting to the COO. In total she spent 2.5 years in Sydney, Australia and 2.5 years in Prague, Czech Republic; the first as a regional finance director and the second running the Central Europe division. She and her family are back in their old house and their three kids (Lily, 13, Cole, 10, and Gray, 7) have adjusted very well to the return.

Chuck Phillips moved back to New London, Conn. after spending four years in the Boston area, first attending a furniture-making program, then hanging around at the school for a couple of extra years. After getting settled in Connecticut, he spent last summer building a home for CL Phillips Fine Furniture in his backyard. He comments, "Now I have what many have dreamed of, a commute of fifty feet from my residence to my place of work." Chuck has an open invitation to any of my Kellogg classmates to drop in if they are ever in the Connecticut area.

The defining moment for Emily Malatesta Kelton and her husband Steve last year came on March 5 with the birth of their sons Andrew and Benjamin. Emily writes, "You can also call them Drew and Ben. You might, like the nurses, call them A and B. Or if you are a parent yourself, you'll appreciate how we call Andrew 'Benjamin' and vice versa. In fact, we should have named them something like Brandrew and Anjamin." Between burping babies and doing yet another load of laundry, the family somehow managed to squeeze in some trips, including the Adirondacks, New York and Denver. The most exciting time was July 5 on the Garden State Parkway when "suddenly the VW's dashboard lit up with inch-high letters saying STOP! Within five minutes the car was a ball of fire." The car was totaled but babies and family were safe.

Julie Sell was in San Francisco earlier this year, so a few of us – Ghia Griarte, Nancy White Ramamurthi, Judy Holme Agnew and I (Heather Forsythe) – got together for dinner. It was great hearing about all the great work Julie is doing with the Red Cross, which she joined in 2010. She is a spokesperson in Haiti, where the Red Cross has been involved in post-earthquake relief and recovery. More recently, Julie has spent time at Red Cross headquarters in D.C. with frequent travel. In addition to meeting classmates in San Francisco, she has seen Sandy Kummerer and Andrew Bartley in recent months.

In addition to recently catching up with Ghia, Nancy, Judy and Julie over dinner, I spent New Year's Eve weekend in Yosemite with Diana Chiou. It was pretty spectacular, as the road across Tuolumne Meadows was still open so we were able to skate across the frozen-solid Lake Tenaya on a perfect, sunny winter day. And I'm going to be seeing a lot more of Nancy Ramamurthi. She recruited me to join her at TripIt (purchased last year by Concur), where I'm responsible for consumer marketing for the TripIt and Concur brands. I'm loving it! For those of you who travel frequently, download our free TripIt app, which organizes all your travel plans in one place. I promise you'll thank me for it.

Enjoy your summer. Looking forward to hearing where everyone spends their vacations! My most recent trip, in November, was an adventure in the Galapagos, where I met Lonely George, the last Galapagos Giant tortoise of his species, and swam with marine iguanas, penguins, sea lions, sting rays, manta rays, sharks…and some spectacular fish.

Alki Economou ’93 and husband Konstantinos Vossos ’93, their kids, and dogs vacationed in Haute Nendaz Switzerland last summer, where the family went trekking in the mounts at 2,850 meters!

Heather Forsythe ’93 nose-to-beak with a red-footed booby in the Galapagos in November

Jim Maffezzoli, Andy Jolls , Dale Zeh, Paul Eskenazi, and Jeff Walsh, all ’93 got together for some skiing in Steamboat in January

John Tiefel ’93 on a safari