Holiday Greetings from 27th floor Chicago!

Big year in Chicago for the Cowan-Schnetzer’s. Dean was promoted in January – next stop Managing Director! We moved to a high-rise down the street in February. Linda conveniently decided to have an emergency appendectomy the same day. Dean’s company, KPMG Consulting, also went public in February with a US$3 billion initial public offering. Dean survived a layoff in April. Dean survived a layoff in May, the same month Linda’s sister Barbara gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, removing the grandchild anxiety from the Schnetzer side of the partnership (sorry Mr. And Mrs. Cowan), and Dean’s grandfather married a wonderful older woman. The summer weekends were exhausted on the Lake Michigan beach. September was spent in Hawaii. November was quite exciting: Dean survived yet another layoff in the hemorrhaging management consulting industry, while Linda accepted an excellent new job. Assuming no last minute intellectual collapse, Dean will graduate on December 7, 2001 with a Masters in Business Administration degree from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business – Show Me the Money!. We plan to celebrate with a glorious month in the Mexican Yucatan in February 2002. This is all cause for tremendous joy this holiday season.

From Dean:

I miss my friends scattered around the world. Graduate school wasn’t necessarily more difficult than anticipated, but certainly sucked up more time than ever expected. My wife has been incredibly supportive and helpful, although it is clear that following graduation: I need a hobby, I need to cook more, I need to clean the kitchen more, I need to go out more, I need to go to the gym more. Yes to all of the above. I’m glad to be done and glad I picked the University of Chicago. My concentrations are in economics and finance. I still love my job and have no plans to make a change, though it has been a very difficult year as the economy has slowed. My industry went from six straight years of double digit growth to negative 50% growth in about 8 months. Our business is well managed and poised to extract additional market share from our competitors – hopefully sooner as opposed to later.

Hawaii was great – nothing like your beautiful wife in a thong bikini on a white sand beach.

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Hello to all! I know we may seem very prompt with our cards this year – don’t expect it every year. We want to make sure everyone has our correct address since we have moved. It was a great year for me, managing Dean while he finishes school, going on some nice trips and finally getting a new job. For any of you who do not know, I returned to Alpha Phi as the Associate Director of Extension. This position is challenging and fun. I was sorry to leave my friends at Smith Bucklin & Associates, but this seemed like a great opportunity. Not many people have the opportunity to get paid for work they enjoy as much as this. Now that I’m not doing so much Alpha Phi volunteer work, I have a lot of time to devote to my other passions, cooking, reading and reading about cooking. Also working out, which is how I can manage so much eating – always an important part of cooking.

Our trip to Hawaii was wonderful, we visited Kauai, Lanai and Big Island. In Kauai we had the biggest athletic challenge of our marriage, with an 8 mile hike on the Na Pali Coast. Since we walk a lot in Chicago, we thought this would be no big deal. We loved this hike, but it did take us about a week of laying in the sun drinking fruity drinks to recover from it. On Lanai we relaxed at a wonderful resort and on Big Island we were busy snorkeling, visiting Peroglyphs (Hawaiian Hieroglyphics) and enjoying the island’s waterfalls. We even visited a green sand and a black sand beach. With all the beaches, I was in my glory. I liked each island more than the last one and hope to return. Dean has not agreed to move to Big Island with me yet. Hopefully we can retire there.