Comments:
Allright, after several messages that I gave no effort to the profile, I will add a proper profile!
After high school, I attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I pledeged a fraternity where I ultimately called our classmates Bret Langefeld and Mark Mathaei "brothers". Although I saw Mark and Bret often, U of I was a good opportunity to make new friends, many of whom continue be be good friends today. I entered the business school and graduated with a BS in Accountancy.
After college, I moved to Chicago and began a career at a regional public accounting firm but quickly moved to Ernst & Young, where I continue my career today. Accounting was a bit boring for me, and I had the opportunity to transition into our Merger & Acquisition practice at a young age, where I could leverage my accounting skills as a foundation and access an interesting and demanding M&A market. I worked with E&Y in Chicago though 2006 when they asked me to move to Miami and focus on transactions for US buyers acquiring companies in Latin America. While I still haven't ultimately moved, I have worked in Miami since. The position put me into intensive Spanish language classes (don't try at the reunion, I'm still horrible) and gave me the opportunity to travel throughout Latin America (I have been to almost every country in LatAm) and work with a diverse and talented group of professionals. I'm holding onto my house in Chicago for dear life - while my Miami professional life is good, the people are quite different and I'm partial to Chicago. So I keep an apartment there and travel back and forth, which, as I think of it, isn't half bad, at least on paper.
As I read others' profiles, I see that many of you have been blessed with great families with lots of cute children. Unforunately, I haven't hit that stage in my life yet, but instead have been fortunate to have had many great life experiences. I enjoy travel and have taken to it passionately, traveling in most European countries, all of Latin America, and throughout Asia. From hiking in Machu Picchu to vacationing in the Baelearic islands in the Mediterranean to trips to Macau, China - the "Las Vegas of the East", I have done it. In addition, I leveraged my "class strongest" fame earned in 1993 to start running marathons. To date, I've run 15, including the last 9 Chicago Marathons. It has become a fun hobby that has a nice side benefit of keeping me in shape.
As many of you could, I could go on forever. Hopefully I can reconnect with you at the reunion and share some more stories. The only thing I should be up for this year is class baldest.
