“Our job was essentially to re-engineer this airport to make it an evacuation center to marshal the volunteers from the embassy to do everything from making sandwiches to donating diapers. And our job was to get these people, many of whom had been traumatized; we had rape victims, people who had suffered horrible violence looking to us to be their sort of conduit to safety.”
“Mary let her career development officer know that I was going to be starting A-100, which is the orientation class, immediately prior to me joining the service. And they assigned us to serve together in Jerusalem. And in fact, even before it became policy to work to try to keep us together the way they keep together married opposite sex couples the department has been very good to us in terms of working to keep us together and having us serve together.”
“I am passionate about sharing U.S. values and culture through exchange programs and other artistic and cultural programs abroad. Despite my disability I have been able to open a world of opportunities for foreign students to study in the United States.”
“I’ve learned that whether you are a Political officer or a Consular officer, a Foreign Service Generalist has to be prepared to do anything necessary. One thing is for sure — it’s always an adventure!”
“I would definitely encourage anybody, no matter what age, to definitely look at the State Department because as I’m a great example, I don’t have the political science or international-type background. I studied sociology, business and Russian and the State Department has a variety of different types of people different backgrounds that really promote different thoughts and work experiences.”
“I think part of our job is to understand the local psyche, the local thought processes, understand the nuances that are embedded in the culture and in the language. You really have to, to some extent, throw yourself in it. But you have to find that happy balance between understanding the local culture and promoting U.S. views as well.”