Eric Rubin, AFSA President

Biography

Welcome to the AFSA President’s page! The 2019-2021 AFSA Governing Board pledges to do its best to represent the 16,700 members of the association and to leave the Foreign Service as a stronger and more vital institution at the end of our term.

The Governing Board is committed to building on the work and momentum of past boards to ensure we have the 21st-century Foreign Service that our country needs. The serious challenges American diplomacy and the Foreign Service face today will deepen. We will need to be more determined, more creative and bolder in presenting the case that diplomacy and development are cost-effective key instruments of national power and that allocating adequate resources for the Foreign Service is a good investment for the U.S. taxpayer, against the backdrop of a very tough fiscal environment.

We have in AFSA an important tool for the Foreign Service. We need to utilize its full potential as a professional association and as a union. For AFSA to be an effective voice of the Foreign Service, and for us to tell our story more convincingly both to the American public and to our Congress, we need your broad and sustained engagement. With this engagement and support we can continue to grow an AFSA that is a powerful advocate for diplomacy and the Foreign Service. Together we can also make AFSA a catalyst for reforms to improve service conditions and the effectiveness of our diplomacy and development policy.

I welcome your comments and suggestions. AFSA's members are more than our eyes and ears around the world – you are a rich source of experience, insights and skills, as well as our motivation. Please feel free to contact me at rubin@afsa.org.

Columns from The Foreign Service Journal

• Our Priorities—and Yours (May 2021)
• Taking Care of Our Colleagues—and Ourselves (Apr 2021)
• What We Need Now (Mar 2021)
• A Moment of Hope and Possibility (Jan-Feb 2021)
• Foreign Service Proud: Very, Very Proud (Dec 2020)
• A Message from George Shultz to the Foreign Service (Nov 2020)
• Taking Stock and Looking Ahead (Oct 2020)
• Change Has Come, More Is Coming (Sep 2020)
• Living Up to Our Ideals (Jul-Aug 2020)
• COVID-19 and the Path Ahead (June 2020)
• Foreign Service Duty (May 2020)
• The Legacy of Tex Harris (April 2020)
• The Foreign Service Act at 40 (Mar 2020)
• A Year of Challenge and Opportunity (Jan-Feb 2020)
• Back to the Gilded Age? (Dec 2019)
• We Defend the Foreign Service (Nov 2019)
• We Are Career Professionals Serving Our Country (Oct 2019)
• Progress and New Priorities (Sep 2019)
• Passing the Baton (Jul-Aug 2019)