The Foreign Service Journal, April 2019

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | APRIL 2019 11 cal for the DCM to take on this additional responsibil- ity. However, I do think the department could look more creatively at how those management coun- selor positions are filled. I have met many bril- liant FS specialists who feel their upward mobility is limited in their career track. Why should they not one day run a manage- ment section or be a DCM? To make this happen, I would argue that management counselor positions at posts should only be open to experienced FS specialists. This would provide the upward mobility. To compete for one of these positions and show that they are well-rounded, FS specialists would need to have demon- strated experience outside their specialty, including completing a tour as a con- sular officer, just as manage- ment-coned FSOs do now. As Mr. Windham suggests, the department might then stop taking in entry-level man- agement officers. But with the above process in place, the department could let specialists take these senior management-level jobs and then backfill with new entry-level specialists. With this change, the overall career path of someone in a management counselor job might be the same as today—e.g., a tour as an assistant general services officer, a tour as consular officer, then as senior GSO before becoming management counselor—with the major difference that now the department would have provided an upward career path for all specialists, whether GSO, office management specialist, financial management officer or something else. I know I tread on dangerous ground, given that I am neither a specialist nor in the management cone. But I have worked with wonderful colleagues in manage- ment sections, both FSO and FS special- ist, and wonder whether the FSO/FSS split there still makes sense. Stuart Denyer FSO FSI/SPAS/CON Arlington, Virginia n