The Foreign Service Journal, January 2003

couple of years after the Foreign Commercial Service was formed, three or four of us who had moved over from State were discussing, perhaps wondering about, the future of our fledgling organization and why we had made the move. Someone opined, “Because we thought that we were going to run it!” If that was the pri- mary motivation, we were quickly disabused of it. However, another motivation was surely that some Foreign Service officers found commercial work rewarding in its own right and chafed at the likelihood that, if they pursued it as a spe- cialty at State, they were condemning themselves to subordinate positions in economic sections abroad and to who- 44 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 3 F O C U S O N F C S A Jeff Moores FCS R ECOLLECTIONS A RETIRED FS OFFICER WHO “ JUMPED THE SHIP OF S TATE ” REVIEWS HIS FCS EXPERIENCE . T HE CONCLUSION ? I F HE HAD TO DO IT AGAIN , HE WOULD . B Y J ACK B LIGH