The Foreign Service Journal, January 2006

State Department’s Job Search Program. But do not expect that program to find the right job for you—or any job. You’ve got to do that yourself using, your communi- cation skills and networking. My own experience has included jobs and volunteer- ing as well as travel. In my first days of retirement, I sent out hundreds of letters to a variety of companies and organizations. I received several nibbles, but then some- one tipped me off about a new scholarship/fellowship program for Americans to study abroad that was going to be run out of the Pentagon (using funds that were cut in 1991 from the Department of Defense budget). I called up that office and was immediately hired because no one of the 10 to 12 people working there had any real inter- national experience. That lasted three years, until we got the first recipients (about 500) selected and on their way. One of the letters I sent out early on produced my next job: improving election procedures in Asian coun- tries. Then EUR, one of three bureaus (the others were AF and EAP) to which I had written about my availabili- ty, sent me as a WAE to Luxembourg for three months where there was a persistent staffing gap. That was fol- lowed a half-year later with another two-month stint there. And about that time I was asked to join a new understaffed office working on Southeastern Europe cooperation, which I did for over three years. Wandering around EUR periodically, I then landed a WAE slot on NATO affairs. In my spare time, the AFSA Speakers’ Bureau began to use me to speak on a variety of topics, some to schools, civic organizations and other groups. That was a very rewarding turn of events, especially as over the years in the Foreign Service I had done hundreds of speaking engagements in various parts of the world. AFSA gets hundreds of requests from around the country every year for speakers. And that, too, is part of networking. In 1999 AFSA put me in touch with a group in Northern Virginia that was looking to add a one-hour- per-week session on world affairs. We are now into our 16th eight-week series, and I have managed to provide F O C U S J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 67