1983

Things move so quickly out here in Silicon Valley that when I called Hilleary Hoskinson about his then six-week-old position as v.p. of customer acquisition and loyalty at the internet search engine, Excite, he already had a new job. Now he's Excite's v.p. and executive producer of channels. Hilleary used to be on the East Coast, as senior v.p. of consumer marketing at U.S.News & World Report, where he also helped launch the new magazine, Fast Company. The rest of the family—wife Barbara (who's from the area), Sabine 7, Caroline 5, and Duncan 2-will be joining him in California this month as soon as school's out.

Joe Dempsey writes to announce the birth of his second son, Brian Joseph Dempsey, who joined Connor (2 1/2) on January 25, and weighed a healthy 9 pounds, 7.8 ounces. "Fortunately for [wife] D'Maris," says Joe, "he was a week early." Any earlier, however, and Dad would have been in a hospital bed alongside him. Earlier in January Joe had back surgery to remove fragments from a herniated disc. Joe also has a fairly new job: last summer he jumped to PNC Bank in New Jersey after 13 years at Manufacturer's Hanover and Chemical Bank in New York. He doesn't miss the 2 1/2-hours-per-day commute but somehow lost three strokes on his golfing handicap along the way. "At least now," he says, "I have an excuse with my back."

Steve Hommeyer has a new addition to the family, too, a girl named Ella Grace, born last fall. "That makes three kids for the Minnesota proctologist and his wife (Sue Babe)," writes my reporter-in-the-trenches—okay, in Santa Barbara—Paul Gignac.

I apologize to Mark Hausmann for not mentioning this earlier (I thought I had). Last July 4 he and his wife, Rachel, added a fourth child, Jacob Elihah, to their family, which already included Hannah 51/2, Nate 31/2, and Benjamin 21/2.

Here's a book I could have used a couple of years ago: Edie Farwell is the co-author of The Tibeten Art of Parenting, a holistic view of child-bearing and child-rearing, with anecdotes from a number of Tibetan families, not to mention 50 "gems of Tibetan wisdom." I don't know about you, but this sort of thing really speaks to me. If only I could achieve a Zen-like state when it comes to my children. Edie was introduced to Tebetan Buddhist culture as a teenager hiking in the Himalaya and today is general manager of the Association for Progressive Communication, a computer network for people and organizations working for social and environmental change. Edie lives in San Francisco and has one child.

The Ashton Technology Group announced that Dr. Alex Stein (the honorific, I take it, thanks to a Ph.D. in computer science) has joined its subsidiary, Gomez Advisors. I should understand this internet stuff better, living where I do, but as far as I can make out, Alex will be doing something having to do with the marketing of financial products and services on the internet. But Alex, if that's true, what are you doing in Philadelphia? Go West, young man.

Here's news of someone who really went West. I read that Roger Wall ranks among the top 250 businessmen in Hawaii. (I didn't even know Hawaii had that many businessmen.) He's the executive vice president and CFO of Foodland Super Market Ltd. And lest you think he got the job by marrying the founder's daughter—which he did—let me tell you right now, it's more complicated than that, in a nineties kind of way. Wife Jenai Sullivan Wall is president of Foodland and, presumably, Roger's boss. Roger and Jenai have two nicely tanned children.

Happy reunion!

2190 Camino de los Robles, Menlo Park, CA 94025;

'83 15TH REUNION JUNE 19-JUNE 21, 1998