The Foreign Service Journal, February 2010

44 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 0 life experiences to guide us. My sense is that if those in the nonprofit sector are willing to put aside their biases and preconceptions about the diplomatic corps, it will create more opportunities for former diplomats to work in leadership po- sitions there. I have found my second career as a CEO in leading international nonprofits to be as fulfilling and rewarding as my 29 years as an American diplomat. Tom Miller Alexandria, Va. S TAYING G REEN When I retired from the Foreign Service in 2001, I was one of the few environment, science and technology offi- cers. Interested in continuing my work in this area, I found a position in 2004 with the Earth Negotiations Bul- letin as writer and editor. This work involves attending environment conferences and negotiations all over the world. In the five years I have worked with ENB , I have attended conferences in Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Brighton, Bonn, Montreal, Nairobi, Paris, Rome, Seoul, Vancouver, Vienna and Yokohama. Topics I have covered include biodiversity, climate change, chemicals and forests. My Foreign Service career was highly relevant to this work, for I had reported on these issues in the course of my assignments in Tokyo and Geneva. The latter posting was particularly relevant because of the numerous United Nations environment agencies located there, many of which I now cover and many of whose staff I know. The ENB welcomes participation by retired diplomats from all over the world: two Americans, one Russian and one Chinese have been on the roster in addition to me. Our reporting goes to more than 50,000 government, ac- ademic and business readers. We produce daily reports at the conferences that are used by delegates to keep current on meetings they cannot attend — when, for example, parallel negotiation sessions are held. We also publish summaries after the meetings that appear on the next working day, just as delegates have reached their home capitals. Many tell us that they rely on our reports to draft their own reports for their governments. Most of our re- ports circulate electronically as e- mails and are available in the Web site archives of our parent organi- zation, the International Institute for Sustainable Development in Canada. Anyone interested in working for ENB should go to www.iisd.ca/ and click on the navigation bar at the top of the homepage. William McPherson Seattle, Wash. T RULY R ETIRED ! About four years prior to retiring from the Foreign Service, I happily took the Retirement Seminar in con- junction with home leave. My wife and I profited im- mensely from it. While we loved the home and neighborhood in which we lived, the horrendous daily commute of one hour in the morning and another hour in the evening made the decision not to live in the Wash- ington, D.C., area an easy one. Immediately prior to re- tirement, I again attended the seminar and was glad of it, for it had even further improved. I left my name with the Office of Communications for possible WAE service and maintained my security clear- ance for about five years. The telephone never rang. Looking back, I see that was a blessing in disguise. My life and career in the Foreign Service could not have been better, and I would not want to change anything even if I’d had the opportunity to do so. My son is also in the Foreign Service, and he and his family always live remotely from us. Regrettably, we get to visit with each other (especially the grandchildren) just two or three times annually. On the other side of that coin, we do get to travel quite a lot, taking the opportunity to visit numerous friends along the way, both at home and abroad. In retirement, I keep up on Foreign Service issues, and never pass up an opportunity to publicize the Foreign Service and careers therein to the U.S. public. I have given numerous talks on the subject before civic groups, private organizations and at academic career days at schools in Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota. Mentoring five university students at different times on F O C U S The retirement seminar was very helpful; everyone should work that into their schedule.