The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2005

Editor’s Note: The following is excerpted from an October 1993 FSJ interview with two former directors of the Foreign Service Institute, on the occasion of the new National Foreign Affairs Training Center’s dedication. Ambassador Brandon Grove Jr. was director from 1988 to 1992, when plans were made for the facility and most of the construction was completed. Lawrence P. Taylor succeeded Grove, and saw the construction through to its completion and official 1993 opening. Journal Editor Anne Stevenson-Yang conducted the interview. FSJ: What do you call the National Foreign Affairs Training Center? NFATC does not make a very friendly acronym. Grove: Well, the name is more than a frivolous concern. It was George Shultz who selected the words, “National Foreign Affairs Training Center,” and that’s the name that appears in leg- islation. The reason Shultz wanted the name was to emphasize that it wasn’t just the Foreign Service that would be receiving training: it was people from more than 40 agencies, and the Civil Service from our own department, together. The new campus would not be there today if it were not for Secretary Shultz, who was its inspiration and who regarded it as a monument to his stewardship. Our predecessors Steve Low and Charlie Bray worked with him to make it a reality. Taylor: The name is very important, but it doesn’t seem to have the zip to it that allows people to use it naturally in conversa- tion. … If a name doesn’t take hold, it’s going to be called “the new FSI” in the vernacular. FSJ: How was Arlington Hall chosen? Grove: The new site is literally a campus. It was built in the early 1920s as a girls’ school called Arlington Hall. In the 1940s, at the beginning of World War II, the Roosevelt administration took over the then-defunct campus — there had been financial prob- lems — and installed an Army communications detachment. … In October 1989, the Department of State was able to take over 72 acres when the Defense Department decided to move its people elsewhere. … The departing Army took with them a decorative World War II cannon, and left behind a ghost named Mary. Mary, a student at Arlington Hall, had been repeatedly sighted in the upper stairwell of a wing of the main building that we have now torn down. She’d had an unhappy and indiscreet love affair and roamed the halls in a white gown just about where we [located] the Overseas Briefing Center.” FSJ: Is there any feeling that this campus is going to be too far away and too isolated? Taylor: There is no issue that has bedeviled FSI staff more than questions about transportation. As an institution, we have tried to prep well for the move, by creating town meetings and commit- tees, newsletters, and giving people opportunities to ask ques- tions, get answers and participate. It’s about a 15-minute drive from the State Department. There will be a shuttle-bus service that may well be quicker than the present service to and from Rosslyn. However, there is no easy walk to a Metro. The other side of that coin is that there will be extensive parking space, and there is a day-care center in the planning stages. In the end, transportation will be worked out. For some, it may take a bit longer, but it’s still a heck of a lot better once you get there. FSJ: What is the relationship among the various agencies and the new NFATC? Taylor: FSI already trains people from 44 or 45 different agen- cies, and we have a vision of it as [being] for the entire U.S. gov- ernment foreign-affairs community. That’s going to have to pro- ceed step by step, but … we should consider strategically moving toward foreign-affairs integration. Grove: I think an effect of the new campus will be to make peo- ple feel happy to be there and feel good about training assign- ments. The biggest problem in training is the unwillingness of supervisors to release those in need of it. No corporation, and cer- tainly not our military, would function with the State Department’s attitude toward training. We need to link training to assignments. The new campus will represent a forward look at training needs in an environment specifically designed for training: that will have an encouraging effect on employees, and supervisors as well. Taylor: We have a culture in the Foreign Service that is anti- training. People pride themselves on getting out of training, because they believe it somehow would be bad for their career. To overcome this, we need to use the move to make people think dif- ferently about career paths, assignments, and the way training fits in, not just into a job but into a career. … One partial answer is increasingly to take training to the workplace. F O C U S 22 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 5 “We Must Not Lose Our Spirit Now”