The Foreign Service Journal, September 2013

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2013 67 Views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the AFSA Retiree VP. Contact: lawrencecohenassociates@hotmail.com o r (703) 437-7881 RETIREE VP VOICE | BY LARRY COHEN AFSA NEWS First, I wish to express our deep appreciation for the service of my predecessor as the AFSA VP for Retirees, Mary Ellen Gilroy. Thanks, Meg, for all that you have done for retirees and for AFSA. As your new vice presi- dent for retirees, I would like to introduce myself by giving an overview of my Foreign Service career and offer a vision for my tenure. After 27 years in the Foreign Service, I retired in 2007. My assignments included Monterrey, Tegu- cigalpa, Chennai, Budapest, Lagos and Brasilia, as well as the provincial reconstruc- tion teams in Bamiyan and Herat, Afghanistan. In the department, I served in the Bureaus of Economic and Business Affairs; Oceans, Environmental and Scientific Affairs; and the O ce of the Special Adviser to the Presi- dent and Secretary of State for Assistance for the Newly Independent States. My last assignment was on the Board of Examiners. Since retiring, I have split my efforts between the Department of State and the private sector. My professional focus has been largely, but not exclusively, on Afghanistan during vari- ous When Actually Employed opportunities. So far, I have presented or facilitated courses at the Foreign Ser- vice Institute and at USAID, served as desk o cer in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, and am completing a temporary duty assignment in Erbil as I draft this column. In general terms, I see three core areas for advocacy and action: • The decision to move the WAE program to a central registry is long overdue, but a step in the right direction. This should make it easier for retirees to identify possible assignments, while realizing some savings for the depart- ment. However, unless the process is transparent and fair, it will not be enough. Changes to the WAE stric- tures concerning pay and the caps on hours worked should be our ultimate goal. • AFSA membership among retirees is distressingly low. It is the responsibility of all retiree members to encour- age our colleagues to join. A major falloff occurs during the final checkout process, as new retirees are unaware that AFSA membership must be proactively renewed—this happened to me. So far, the department has not made changes to this process. • Finally, retirees need to protect their own benefits. Most serious, perhaps, is the pernicious rise in health care expenses, which are out of proportion to any cost-of-liv- ing increases for retirees. For this, we need to help AFSA maintain pressure on Capitol Hill and the administration. Thank you in advance for your support and guidance. Feel free to share your ideas, critiques, complaints, com- ments and casual observa- tions. I look forward to work- ing with AFSA’s Governing Board and professional staff on your behalf. n WAE, Engaging Retirees and Protecting Benefits SPEAKER SER I ES Divorce in the Foreign Service: Pitfalls, Issues and Regs BY DONNA AYERST, AFSA NEWS EDITOR On July 30, AFSA hosted the sixth installment of its Speaker Series on Federal Benefits. AFSA and the Department of State’s Divorce Working Group presented a seminar and panel discussion on the sensitive yet important topic of divorce in the Foreign Service. Susan Frost, director of the Family Liaison O ce, moder- ated the panel discussion, which featured Daniel Hirsch, management o cer and former AFSA State vice president; Elizabeth Royal, work-life specialist; Jacqueline Long, chief policy adviser of the O ce of Retirement; and Sharon Zaro- zny, founder of Brilliant Exits LLC, a divorce consulting and support group. Divorce is something that happens to almost 50 percent of marriages. In most cases, it is a di cult process at best. It can be financially devastating, it can wreck one’s self esteem, and we haven’t even mentioned the kids, which can be the most heart-wrenching aspect of it all. But it doesn’t have to be all-out war. If marriage therapy fails and divorce is the only alternative, many couples turn to mediation, rather than heading straight to a lawyer. Of course, this presumes that you have access to ser- vices—in Kinshasa, or Caracas, or Kathmandu? Yes, a divorce in the Foreign Service is a different animal all together. The resource experts that comprised AFSA’s panel shared some very good suggestions. But the one bit of advice they all agreed as most important: time your separation between tours. Most of the discussion focused on the many Foreign Ser- vice regulations that make your divorce different than your cousin’s in Kansas. The event provided time for questions and the opportunity to understand some of the more arcane regulations. Divorce continued on page 83