The Foreign Service Journal, September 2013

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2013 69 AFSA NEWS CLAYTON BOND, STATE REPRESENTATIVE An alumnus of the Thomas R. Pickering Grad- uate Foreign Affairs Fellowship, Clayton Bond entered the Foreign Service on September 10, 2001. He is a mid-level o cer in the Bureau of African Affairs. Besides two previous assign- ments in Washington, D.C., Clayton has served in Colombia, India, Singapore and Jakarta. He is the author of Djakarta Djournal: Adventures of a Diplomatic Spouse in Indonesia , and is working on a photographic exhibition of the beauty that still exists in his hometown of Detroit. He is married to Ted Osius, also a Foreign Service o cer. EVERETT “ALEX” COPHER, STATE REPRESENTATIVE Everett “Alex” Copher, an Information Management Specialist, began his Foreign Service connection in December 1979 as a Marine Security Guard in Sri Lanka and Colombia.  Following college, he joined the Foreign Service in July 1989 and served in Accra, Asuncion, Almaty, Bogota, Lilongwe, Kathmandu, Rangoon, Yerevan and Georgetown, with TDY assignments in Freetown, Buenos Aires and Bishkek. Alex currently serves in the Bureau of Informa- tion Resource Management’s O ce of External Affairs as a coordinator handling Department of Defense information and communication technology issues.  TODD CRAWFORD, STATE REPRESENTATIVE Currently serving on the Benelux Desk, Todd began his Foreign Service career with a con- sular tour in Yemen. His interest in interna- tional affairs stems from his curiosity about the world and its people, an abiding faith that we can always do better, and a deep-seated commitment to endeavor to make it so. Todd is a co-founder of the Young Dip- lomats Network, which fosters closer social and professional ties in the diplomatic community among young diplomats, and those who are young at heart, in Washington, D.C. CHUCK FEE, STATE REPRESENTATIVE Chuck Fee joined State in 2010, along with his wife, FSO Heather Ward. Together they are a Generalist-Specialist tandem couple. He wants AFSA to become a more forthright advocate for Entry Level Professionals, par- ticularly on issues faced by new parents. STEVE MORRISON, FCS VICE PRESIDENT A longtime Commercial Service o cer, Steve Morrison served in Mexico, Spain, France and Senegal. In addition to working with small and medium-sized firms to enter foreign markets, Steve has worked closely with U.S. firms to protect overseas investment and advocate on their behalf. Steve has produced and/or coordinated numerous Commercial Service market entry products and services—most recently, 17 Gold Keys to India as part of Maryland Governor O’Malley’s recent trade mission there. Steve ran the Commercial Service’s Southern California domestic o ce and has worked in the Baltimore o ce. He has worked on Capitol Hill, in the Pentagon and spent eight years in the O ce of the Secretary of Commerce. Steve has a B.A. from Kalamazoo College, master’s in public policy from the University of Michigan and has completed Ph.D. coursework at the Institute for Diplomatic and Strategic Studies in Paris. He is married and has one child. DAVID MERGEN, FAS VICE PRESIDENT David Mergen has been vice president for FAS since 2011, when he returned to Washington from an assignment as agricultural counselor in Buenos Aires. His other overseas assign- ments have included Colombia, Spain and the U.S. Mission to the World Trade Organization in Geneva. In Washington he participated in the Uruguay Round WTO negotiations and worked on monitoring and enforcing trade agreements. He has a master’s degree in agricultural econom- ics from the University of Missouri and grew up on a cattle and grain farm in Missouri.  LARRY COHEN, RETIREE VICE PRESIDENT Following a 27-year career, Larry retired from the Foreign Service in 2007. His overseas tours included Monterrey, Tegucigalpa, Chen- nai, Budapest, Lagos and Brasilia, as well as Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Bamiyan and Herat, Afghanistan. In Washington, Larry served in the bureaus of Economic and Business Affairs; Oceans, Inter- national Environmental and Scientific Affairs; and Human Resources, as well as the o ce of the Coordinator for Assis- tance to the New Independent States. Larry established a business and training consultancy and is vice president of a start-up. He has done When Actually Employed work.