The Foreign Service Journal, January 2003

some services, Litman says, “There’s an element of surprise and disap- pointment from smaller companies. They do not expect people who in their minds are part of the U.S. embassy to suddenly say, ‘You will also get an invoice.’ It does look a lit- tle strange when the U.S. govern- ment charges you a fee when you’re trying to export.” Larger companies don’t mind, he says. The Commercial Service likes to proclaim the magnitude of its achievements. It states, for example that in 2001 it helped 9,000 businesses, “most of them small and medi- um-sized, export goods and services worth $34 billion.” Some critics say those are inflated figures, and that many if not most of those deals would have been made without CS help. But FSO Stephen Craven says that the error may actually be in the opposite direction; i.e., many American businesses get valuable assistance from the USEACs, but then never report back on their eventual successes. “Some companies, especially here in the West, are very suspicious of the U.S. government. They’re afraid that we’ll share information with the IRS,” he says, though the USEACs don’t do that. “We’re still not that good at tracking our successes,” Craven says. The Foreign Service As Anomaly There are only 220 FSOs out of 1,800 Commercial Service employees — and 35,000 Commerce Depart- ment employees. But, says Eric Sletten, “We’re very highly valued by the department. Our officers, while they’re overseas, represent the Commercial Service, but they represent every other element of this [Commerce Department] building. If NOAA [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] needs something, we’re the go-to guys. That makes us a good value. People get a lot from us for a relatively small amount of money.” When they are posted overseas, Sletten says, com- mercial officers “identify as much with State as we do with Commerce.” Most Commercial Service officers are stationed in embassies and consulates, and all serve under their ambassador’s authority. In the 1980s, during the first years of the Service, there were often tensions between the CS and State’s econom- ic officers. “That doesn’t really exist any more,” Sletten says, though he complains that in a few of the largest U.S. embassies in Europe, commer- cial officers are effectively excluded from the country team. “Those few posts in Europe are exceptions,” he emphasizes. Though the duties of commercial officers and State’s economic officers may sometimes overlap, Craven says, “When a problem comes up, the rule of reason tends to prevail. The per- son best qualified to deal with it tackles the job.” While commercial officers abroad are definitely part of the embassy community, Sletten says, “We exist in three cultures: a State culture, a Commerce culture and a private sector culture. ... The commercial officer has a lot more hats to wear than the average State officer. We have to do the vast majority of our own personnel work. We manage our own budgets and procurement. We typ- ically manage FSN staffs that are much larger than State staffs.” To find people who can meet these challenges, the Commercial Service has over the years developed an “assessment” process for hiring new officers. The assess- ment includes a set of exercises similar to the State Department oral exam, plus evaluation of qualifications and previous experience in international trade. Commerce doesn’t use the Foreign Service written exam. Most recruiting is done at the FS-4 or FS-5 level, though occasionally Civil Service employees are brought in at higher FS ranks. The Commercial Service hires about 10 to 15 FSOs a year, and hopes to hire even more in 2003. The U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service — partic- ularly its Foreign Service component — certainly faces lots of challenges: terrorism and security risks, rapidly changing technologies that threaten to make old ways of doing things obsolete, and a tight budget that could be made even tighter by State and OMB demands. But the survival and continued vitality of the Service are not in doubt. As long as the United States remains an exporting nation, it will continue to value the domestic and overseas components that make the Commercial Service a key part of America’s strategy for economic prosperity. F O C U S 28 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 Small firms need an unusual combination of luck and perseverance to break into a foreign market. But FCS can make the process less random.