The Foreign Service Journal, May 2016

the Foreign Service journal | may 2016 47 film society and served on city boards that oversee historic pres- ervation and downtown revitalization. I’ve also been on a variety of nonprofit boards, as well as taking an active role in my local Unitarian Universalist congregation. Volunteer activities can be more challenging than one might think. Successfully leading others in a no-pay environment can arguably be more complicated than dealing from a position of authority in an embassy or a departmental bureau. I’ve drawn often on some of the management tools I learned in the Foreign Service, particularly from the deputy chief of mission course. Unlike in the FS, however, the payoff is that you can build some- thing from beginning to end and take personal ownership of it. A taste for fundraising is usually critical, as is a willingness to stay reasonably up-to-date with fast-evolving communications technology. So unless you have the credentials and contacts to remain active in foreign affairs, identify your other pursuits early on. If these suggest further study or training, make the investment as soon as possible. It can be hard to gear up once you’re in your late 60s and 70s. Mark Lore served in the U.S. Army before joining the Foreign Service in 1965. He served in Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia, Luanda, Rabat and Brussels in citizen protection and visas; general administration; political representation; and reporting on local political and eco- nomic conditions and host government attitudes. He later served as counselor for economic affairs in Lisbon, as director of the Office of Brazilian Affairs in Washington, D.C., as deputy chief of mission in Brasilia and as a professor at the Naval War College in Rhode Island. He retired in 1997. Back in Academia After an “Interlude” By James F. Creagan I n joining the Foreign Service, I never intended to stay “for life.” It was to be an interlude, perhaps five years, in the life of a professor. I thought that some Foreign Service experience would be useful in teaching foreign policy and international relations to future students. That five-year interlude turned into almost 35 years for me and for my family. It went by in a flash. I had imagined myself a minor Kissinger, who could enter government and return to Harvard as a full professor unscathed by the government experience—even ready for another Depart- ment of State stint at some point. I dropped out after tours in Mexico City and San Salvador to return to where I thought the action was in the early 1970s, the campus. I tried to quit the For- eign Service, but my terrific ambassador, Bill Bowdler, convinced me to take leave without pay instead. After a year at Texas A&M, I was ready for the world again. So off we went, Gwyn and I and the children, to successive posts in Rome, Lima, Naples, Lisbon, Brasilia, Vatican City, São Paulo, New York City, Rome and Tegucigalpa. It was a long run, with an ambassadorship and the fun and grind of running two embas- sies in Italy and a consulate general in Brazil. We spent only two years out of 34 in Washington, D.C. It was the old Foreign Service, and the focus was on the foreign. Along the way, I was lucky to have had the opportunity to teach a course or to lecture at universities in several countries. After I retired, the Board of Trustees at a private university in Rome lured us back to Italy. Six-plus years as university president there meant that we had lived 18 years or so in Italy. Tough duty. James Creagan discusses the work of a diplomat at the Vatican with a student in the course “The Holy See and World Affairs.” COURTESYOFJAMESCREAGANL