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CLUB AND CLASS NEWS
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A Progress Report
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U.S. and International Alumni Chapters
In Memoriam
ALUMNI PROFILES
Polly Kawalek, ’78
Kawalek's Staying Power
Lee Hillman, ’79
Bally Total Fitness Shapes Up
Arnold Donald,
formerly corporate senior vice president of Monsanto Company, is chairman and chief executive officer of the newly launched Merisant Company. Merisant’s products include tabletop sweetener brands Equal and Canderel. The company’s headquarters will be in Chicago.Formerly vice president and corporate controller for Quaker Oats Company, Richard Gunst became vice president of planning, analysis, and controls at the firm in January. Prior to joining Quaker in October 1992 as finance director, Gunst worked at Pepsi/Frito-Lay and Amoco.
Julie Kunstler and Portview Communications Partners have just closed their second venture capital fund, focusing on start-ups in the communications industry in Europe, Israel, and the United States. They have decided to raise a second, larger fund based on their success with their first fund (Catalyst). Investors include international vendors in communications and IT industries, along with financial institutions and successful entrepreneurs. Kunstler has also been named lecturer at the M.B.A. program at the Technion in Haifa, Israel. She reports that her three children, ages 18, 14, and 9, are doing well.
Charles E. Woods, A.B. ’79, M.B.A. ’80, is a partner in the Dallas law firm Short, How, Frels and Heitz P.C. Woods specializes in commercial litigation, family law, and bankruptcy. “In my spare time, I am striving to become an expert rated tournament chess player,” he writes.
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1981
As vice president of sales and marketing, Jeff Baymor helped launch Tumbleweed Communications, a public company as of last August. Following his tenure with Tumbleweed Communications, Baymor cofounded an Internet commerce company, Vitessa.net. The Seattle-based firm provides e-commerce services to Fortune and Internet 500 firms, including Microsoft, NBC, and E-How. “With Vitessa’s path charted, I am taking an extended leave from the Internet start-up frenzy to pursue travel, fishing, and education,” Baymor writes. He and his wife, Elizabeth, live on their ranch in Half Moon Bay, California.
Following 15 years in the fixed income division at Goldman Sachs, Robert S. Gray joined the institutional marketing group with Goldman Sachs Asset Management last June. Gray, his wife, Suzanne, and their four sons live in the Chicago area, where Gray was recently elected to the local school board and is vice president of the Indian Boundary YMCA’s board of directors.
Eric G. Rodli was appointed chief operating officer of the Kodak Entertainment imaging division. Rodli was formerly president of Bexel, the largest broadcast video and audio equipment rental company in the United States.
Dave Wahlen has recently accepted the position of president and chief executive officer of the A.T. Cross Company. The Rhode Island–based firm manufactures and sells writing instruments and pen computing products.
Eric Weber is chief executive officer of Communitypath.com, an Intranet company that facilitates communication between homeowners associations and their homeowners. He writes: “It’s great fun after relocating back to the U.S. from Japan. We now live in L.A. and are enjoying once more being Americans.”
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1982
In September, McGraw-Hill will publish Jay Abrams’s book on the valuation of private businesses. He owns a valuation firm in La Jolla, California, where he lives with his wife, Cindy, and four (“soon five”) children.
In his new role as managing director of Cap Gemini Insurance’s global market unit, Steven Bessellieu is responsible for worldwide consulting and solutions services for the insurance industry.
Amy Frances Brooks and her husband, Dale Hedtke, have opened a boat shop in St. Paul, Minnesota, called The Boat-House. The business specializes in small boats, especially kayaks and wood boats.
Mark Cybulski is vice president, information systems, for the occupant safety systems automotive group of TRW Inc. He, his wife, Sue, and their sons, Ted and Joe, live in Rochester Hills, Michigan.
Since August Anucha Laokwansatit has worked for American International Assurance Co. Ltd. (AIA) as chief investment officer for Thailand and Indochina. AIA is a subsidiary of AIG in New York. Prior to joining AIA, Laokwansatit completed a one-year assignment as assistant secretary-general at the Financial Sector Restructuring Authority, a government agency established two years ago to liquidate the U.S.$25 billion assets of 56 financial companies closed by the government. The process mirrored the U.S. Resolution Trust Corp.’s handling of the savings and loan fiasco in the 1980s.
Paul Mulkerrin reports that he is very busy as chief executive officer of a new company selling psychiatric screening and treatment tools directly to consumers and corporate benefits managers on the Web (www.CopeWithLife.com). He also consults with other psychiatric services companies from his new home in Denver and is eager to hear from classmates. E-mail him at mulkerrin@worldnet.att.net.
“In the last three years,” writes Jon Powell, “I got married to Diane Bunin, ’86, moved, changed jobs, had a baby girl named Natasha, and moved again.” Powell works for Plural, an Internet strategy, design, and consulting firm. “We are 450 people going on 1,000 and need Web technologists and business consultants in nine offices in the U.S.,” he adds. Powell also chairs MERIT, an organization that provides musical instruction to more than 2,500 Chicago public school students and runs a tuition-free conservatory in Printer’s Row for advanced students. Anyone interested in Plural or MERIT can contact Powell at powellj@plural.com or check out the respective Web sites: www.plural.com and www.meritmusic.org.
After three years in Paris heading the agricultural equipment marketing efforts at Case Corporation, George Russell is returning to the United States as vice president, dealer and business opportunity development, for CNH Global N.V., the company born of the merger of Case and New Holland N.V. The new company is the largest manufacturer of farm equipment in the world and third in construction equipment. Russell and his wife, Judy, who is senior director of communications for CNH Global, will live in Lake Forest, Illinois.
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1983
Dorothy (Dolly) Bellhouse is senior vice president, planning and marketing, at Bridgeport Hospital/Yale New Haven Health System. Among her colleagues is John Bradley, ’85. A resident of Milford, Connecticut, Bellhouse reports that she is enjoying Long Island Sound and getting into New York City. “Last fall,” she writes, “I had dinner with Evans Starzinger when he stopped in Southport on his voyage in his new vessel from Greenland to the Caribbean. He and Beth are at sea for the duration!”
Linda Moses has been involved in various aspects of structured finance since 1987. “I have been at Citigroup for almost six years,” she reports, “and I currently manage the vehicles that issue asset-backed commercial paper. I have lived in Manhattan since graduation and have three terrific boys (ages 8, 6, and 3). I run into other Chicago alums either at work or at the children’s school—Harley Bassman and Alicia Doctoroff have children in the same grades.”
After 16 years at Citibank Korea, Jin-Hei Park is leaving his position as country treasurer to join Samsung Securities Co. as managing director in charge of finance and investment.
Brian Peirce is president of Peirce-Phelps Inc., a 75-year-old, third-generation family business. The company recently entered the Pittsburgh and Baltimore markets and is expected to top $120 million in sales this year. Peirce lives in the Philadelphia suburbs with his wife, Christina, and their three children.
Gary Rogers is vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for Sonus Networks, a start-up company developing switching products for the new public voice network. “Watch for our public offering later in the spring,” he writes. The company is based in Westford, Massachusetts.
In October John Wiley & Sons published Howard Simons’s book The Dynamic Option Selection System: Analyzing Markets and Managing Risk.
Conoco promoted Andrew D. Wagner to general manager of finance for its refining and marketing operations in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. After three years in Malaysia, Wagner now resides in Hamburg, Germany, with his wife, Jamie, and his two children. “This is a bit of a ‘homecoming’ for me, for I spent four years in Hamburg during my childhood when my father worked at the U.S. Consulate in the mid-1960s,” writes Wagner. Earlier this year, Wagner and his family visited with his former GSB classmate Colette Marcellin and her family in Singapore. “We shared stories about Asia and have agreed to do the same in Europe, as Collette is in Paris, which is just a short train ride from Hamburg,” says Wagner. “Little did we know how ‘international’ we would become after living in the International House at the University of Chicago!”
The Women’s Theatre Alliance’s seventh annual New Plays Festival at Chicago’s Footsteps Theatre featured a staged reading of Margaret Waterstreet’s Rape of Nanking According to Winnie.
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1984
After two years of managing Pizza Hut Korea, a subsidiary of Tricon Restaurants International, In-Soo Cho has moved to Dallas to join Tricon as senior vice president and chief marketing officer. Tricon also owns and operates KFC and Taco Bell. Cho can be reached at in-soo.cho@tricon-yum.com.
Thomson Financial Publishing (TFP) named Glenn Gottfried general manager in 1999. TFP is an operating company within Thomson Financial (TF), a leading provider of financial information and systems. TF is a part of the Thomson Corporation, a U.S.$6 billion Canadian corporation.
Andrew Giblon writes: “My wife, Cheryl, and I are thrilled to announce the birth of our second daughter, Melissa Ruth, in August. Our other daughter, Rebecca Miriam, is 2.” Giblon was recently promoted to vice president of KPMG-VERSA Systems, a technology division of KPMG in Toronto. He also represented Canada in table tennis at the 1997 quadrennial Maccabiah Games in Israel, an Olympic-style competition for 6,000 Jewish athletes from 60 countries. Giblon, who was also selected for the competition in 1985, 1989, and 1993, advanced to the final sixteen in the men’s singles competition for the third time.
Marjorie Greenspan and her husband, David Kaufman, announce the birth last September of their son, Grant. Greenspan works as managing director at Towneley Capital Management in New York, where she coordinates marketing and client services for the Libre hedge funds, Eclipse mutual funds, and separate account strategies.
Tom O’Connor is director of financial planning for Keller, Collins, Hakopian and Leisure, a provider of financial planning and investment management services to individuals, trusts, and benefit plans. The firm is located in Irvine, California. O’Connor reports: “As southern California continues to enjoy a strong local economy and a good stock market, we find lots of people looking for help with unexpected financial complexity—and unexpected levels of assets—in their lives. In 16 years of advising employees with stock options, I’ve never seen wealth accumulate so quickly.” O’Connor lives with his wife, Sally, and their two children in Trabuco Canyon and invites old friends to look them up.
The law firm Gray, Cary, Ware & Freidenrich in Palo Alto, California, promoted Jon C. Perry to partner. Perry specializes in mergers and acquisitions for public and private high-technology firms. Before joining the firm, he worked for Arthur Young in Chicago and KPMG in San Francisco.
After working for John Nuveen for 12 years, Ugis Sprudzs has joined the consulting industry. Following a stint with KPMG, Sprudzs now serves as senior principal for American Management Systems Inc. Last year he published an academic article in the Financial Counseling and Planning Journal on portfolio diversification practices of American households.
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1985
John Bradley (see Dorothy Bellhouse, ’83)
After six years in Omaha, Bren Buckley is moving back to Michigan, where her husband, Douglas Duchek, has become a partner at the Detroit law firm JaffeRaitt. Buckley sends greetings to the class of 1985.
Shekhar R. Chitnis recently became president of Liquidmetal Golf in San Clemente, California. Chitnis reports that he plans to take the company public in the near future.
Joe Hoffman left Liberty Mutual Group in 1997 to become president of Landfall Financial Advisors Inc., a fee-only financial planning and investment management firm headquartered in Dublin, Ohio. “There has been a lot going on in financial services, and the next few years should be interesting,” he writes. Hoffman, his wife, Loretta, and his three children—Paul, 14, Joanna, 11, and Laura, 8—live in Upper Arlington, outside of Columbus, Ohio.
Last October Aziz Ahmed Khan moved from directing Heller Financial’s small loan program to the leasing services group as a senior vice president of strategic planning. Khan is currently developing a global e-business platform for the firm’s small-ticket vendor leasing business.
John Lach, J.D. ’84, M.B.A. ’85, reports that he is happily married to Sally Sarsfield and has two “wonderful” boys, Ryan, 6, and Griffin, 3. The family returned to Westport, Connecticut, after “three great years” in Portland, Oregon. Lach is chief investment officer of Winter Capital International, an investment management firm in New York City.
David Mapley writes that Shimoda Capital (www.shimoda-ltd.com/office.html) is relocating to its own building on the Thames at Blackfriars in London. He has teamed up with another alum, Richard Rubin, ’93, to launch other funds in central and eastern Europe.
Ron Rubin currently serves as senior counsel with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s division of enforcement. He recently transferred from the SEC’s southeast regional office in Miami to its northeast regional office in New York.
Although living in Hollywood, John R. Sylla, J.D. ’85, M.B.A. ’85, commuted to the GSB once a week last fall to teach a new course on law and management. He reports that he is also working on Silicon Valley companies, including one just bought by Cisco; helping to start a Los Angeles–based Internet distance learning company; and producing a small, independent film.
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1986
Betsy Bradley is a professor of public health and associate director of the health management program at Yale. Bradley lives in Connecticut with her husband, John Bradley, and her three children, Alice, 7, Kate, 4, and Tim, 1. She would love to hear from other alumni who are working in health care in the area.
Smith Brookhart has moved to Atlanta, where he is a managing director in the corporate and investment banking division of SunTrust. Brookhart writes: “My wife, Virginia, and I were blessed with the birth of our third child, Stewart Arthur, in January. Life is hectic but very good!”
Diane Bunin (see Jon Powell, ’82)
Dane S. Clausen, assistant professor of communication and mass media at Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield, edited and coauthored The Promise Keepers: Essays on Masculinity and Christianity. McFarland & Co. Inc. released the book in late November. In December, Pilgrim Press released a second book edited and coauthored by Clausen, Standing on the Promises: The Promise Keepers and the Revival of Manhood.
David Kriozere and his family have returned to the San Francisco area after spending a year in India. Kriozere had been working for an Indian company helping with privatizing the insurance sector. “For now,” he writes, “it’s great to be back by the Bay.” He and his wife are expecting their second child.
In addition to her current responsibilities as vice president and general manager of Pharmaceutical Managed HealthCare, Heather Mason recently took on the same responsibilities for the organization’s fledgling oncology business.
David Patten resigned from his position at Arco Chemical Company in July to start Penn Specialty Chemicals with other chemical industry executives. With the help of venture capitalists, Patten and partners purchased the Great Lakes Chemical Furfural and Derivatives Business, formerly known as QO Chemical. He is vice president of sales and marketing. Patten and his wife, Marilisa, live in Havertown, Pennsylvania, with their three children, David Jr., 11, Michelle, 8, and Sean, 6.
Andrew Pipa runs the convertible bond trading department as newly promoted managing director at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. He lives in Bellport, New York.
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1987
After 13 years in consumer packaged goods marketing, Joe Davis has moved into the “information economy” as director of marketing for Nexis, the leading online provider of business information, based in Bethesda, Maryland.
Steven Eliscu writes: “I recently left IDT, my employer of 11 years, to do the Silicon Valley start-up thing. I am vice president of business development for Meicom Technologies, an Israel-based company, for which I have established their U.S. operation in Santa Clara. It’s not exactly an Internet company, but we sell technology that makes video, images, and audio move faster over the Internet.”
For the last 15 months, Hassan Elmasry has been living with his wife and three children in London, where he runs a European equity portfolio for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.
Richard A. Linden has been promoted to president and chief operating officer of MMI Group Inc., a subsidiary of MMI Companies Inc., of which Linden is also senior vice president. MMI Companies provides consulting and risk management services to the health care industry. Linden and his wife have four daughters: Jessica, Kelsey, Allison, and Michelle.
John Maher is director of finance at Livingston & Company, a West Lebanon, New Hampshire, start-up firm that designs and manufactures resistance weld monitoring systems. The company’s products allow the detection of bad welds in real time, obviating the need to perform destructive tests on statistical samples after long and costly production runs. Maher can be reached at john.maher@livco.com.
Randy Schusterman Miller has joined U.S. Wireless Corporation as vice president of financial and media relations. U.S. Wireless is a leading provider of wireless location information and mobile content for the carrier, Internet, and transportation industries. Schusterman Miller lives with her husband, Scott, and sons, Grant, 41/2, and Adam, 1, in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey.
George Mulligan was named vice president of international sales for EGS Electrical Group, a worldwide manufacturer of electrical hardware and lighting in Skokie, Illinois. He has been with the company and its predecessor since 1985, serving as vice president of sales and vice president of marketing. He and his wife, Lorraine, and two daughters live in Downers Grove, Illinois.
Marsh USA Inc. promoted Christopher Pethley to managing director.
Seth Washburne reports that his three-year-old hedge fund, Washburne Capital Management, ranked first among merger arbitrage managers for 1998 and 1999 and sixth among all hedge funds for low volatility. He would enjoy hearing from his old friends and would “be happy to discuss alternative investments.”
Deborah Wente has been named general manager of the sheet products division–Wisconsin for VPI L.L.C.
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1988
David Abramson, A.M. ’88, M.B.A. ’88, writes: “Our big news is the arrival of our third child, Samuel Joseph, on May 3. He joins our other two children, Michael, 7, and Lauren, 5. Hello to all our GSB friends!”
Mark Albert continues to enjoy living in southern California and working for his new employer, Credit Suisse First Boston. His wife, Gina Valentine, works for Runner’s World magazine. Albert writes: “No kids yet. Life is great.”
Amy Geller married Greg Hale in January. They live in Chicago.
In September Taku Kamata and his wife, Yoshiku, returned to Washington, D.C., where Kamata once again joined the World Bank. He works in the corporate strategy group, where he develops management strategy. In addition, Kamata has begun to practice kendo, the Japanese sport of fencing with bamboo swords.
Mike McKay is a partner at Boston’s Bain and Company. He recently assumed office leadership of Bain’s Private Equity Group, a specialized team providing strategic diligence support to principal investors.
Mark Monyek is senior director, business research, for McDonald’s Corporation in Oak Brook, Illinois. He and his wife, Laura, have two children: Haleigh, 4, and Robert, 2.
Pam Sternad is engaged to be married in October to Geoffrey Styles. She is
director of investor relations for Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, Inc.
Abby Trachtenberg married Howard Simon in October. Her new family includes her husband’s 11-year-old son, Alex. Trachtenberg is assistant director at University Health System Consortium. She and her family live in Chicago.
Jonathan Woodbury is launching his own company, TerraNova Software. The firm’s first product is PerfectViews, which allows anyone to distribute and analyze information online using maps, charts, tables, and other features. Woodbury writes: “PerfectView is a business-to-business, business-to-consumer, intranet, or extranet product. Check us out soon at www.terranovasoftware.com.”
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1989
David Alerhand recently joined Deutsche Bank in Mexico City, Mexico, as a director of investment banking. Previously, he worked at N.M. Rothschild & Sons Ltd. “After working in a very unique and prestigious investment banking house such as Rothschild, I am looking forward to this opportunity at Deutsche Bank. It promises to be very challenging and exciting,” writes Alerhand.
Layth C. Alwan, Ph.D. ’89, associate professor of business statistics and operations management at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee School of Business Administration, recently published Statistical Process Analysis (Irwin/McGraw-Hill).
Catherine Benham changed jobs last fall and is now principal assistant to Vermont’s secretary of administration. She has two children: Martha, 3, and Keegan, 18 months. “Living happily ever after in Vermont,” she writes.
Rob Doone is director of business for a division of Jacobs Engineering, a large engineering, construction, and architecture firm. The company’s current projects include the National Ignition Facility (fusion reactor) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Doone lives in Alexandria, Virginia, and reports that he is “still single.” He adds, “Last fall I actually expanded Webster’s Dictionary by inventing new words after I fractured my knee in a cycling accident. After crutches and physical therapy, I’m now close to being back 100 percent.”
Christopher Gill is the owner of Heritage Microfilm Inc., which microfilms 600 North American newspapers (600,000 pages a month) and sells copies of the film to thousands of libraries and institutions. The firm also offers Web access to the 150 million pages of microfilmed newspaper stored in its vault. Gill writes, “If any Chicago alums ended up running a newspaper, please drop me a note at chris@heritagemicrofilm.com. We’ll film your paper for free.”
Lou Hanover says business is going well at Marathon Asset Management, where he is managing member. His wife, Jeanne, is keeping busy with her human resources consulting business. Eli, 4, and Ella, 3, are “keeping us extremely busy,” writes Hanover.
David Hirsch is marketing director for Synygy, a company that implements and manages incentive compensation plans for large organizations. In the year that he has been at Synygy, the firm has more than doubled in size to nearly 200 employees.
Joel Mambretti is coauthor of a new book, Next Generation Internet: Creating Advanced Networks and Services, published by Wiley. He is director of the International Center of Advanced Internet Research at Northwestern University and of the Metropolitan Research and Education Network, an advanced network linking research organizations in seven states.
Guy Nohra was a panelist at GSB’s West Quest in December. See “What Good Is an M.B.A.?”.
Fabrizio Panzeri moved to New York City in March to open a branch of Eric Salmon & Partners, an executive search with four offices in Europe. “Together with my wife, Giulia, and my son, Alberto, who is 20 months old, we hope to enjoy the city and meet some classmates,” Panzeri writes.
Robin Simon reports that she has moved back to Chicago.
Louise Park Stejbach and her husband, Mark, had their second child, Matthew, in December. Stejbach, her husband, her son, and her daughter, Emma, live in Philadelphia, where she is a senior director of marketing for Merck & Co. Inc.
Nabisco Biscuit Company in East Hanover, New Jersey, promoted Frank Thometz to senior director of channel and portfolio marketing. Thometz joined the firm in 1997 after spending eight years with M & M/Mars as a brand manager. He and his wife, Kathleen, have three children ages 4, 2, and 6 months.
Harold Weiss is managing partner at Six Degrees, a brand strategy and communications consultancy. The firm specializes in developing large, multinational brands in the pharmaceutical, high-tech, automotive, and consumer products industries.
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