The Foreign Service Journal, September 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2014 67 AFSA NEWS New Members Join AFSA’s Governing Board Over the summer, new mem- bers joined the AFSA Govern- ing Board as other members rotated off to new assign- ments. AFSA is very pleased to welcome Ronnie Catipon, Homeyra Mokhtarzada and Neeru Lal. Ronnie Catipon joined the Foreign Service in July 1997 as a Diplomatic Security Special Agent. He is currently the regional director for Afghanistan and Iraq in the DS Directorate of High Threat Posts. Previous assignments with DS include The Hague, Kabul (two tours), Kyiv, Tbilisi, Manila and the Sec- retary’s Protective Detail; his first assignment with the Foreign Service was to Almaty as an eligible family member. Catipon is a recipient of State’s Heroism Award and a number of Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards, and he holds degrees from The Ohio State University, The George Washington University and the U.S. Army War College. He is married to a former FSO, and they are the proud parents of four children. Homeyra Mokhtarzada joined the Department of State in August 2010. Her first assignment was on the Turkey Desk, where she earned a Superior Honor Award. Following a two-year consular tour in Bogota, she returned to Washington to join the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration’s Office of Multilateral Coordi- nation. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Mokhtarzada worked for CNN for six years and, from 2002, for the Inter- national Foundation for Electoral Systems. There she managed programming for Afghanistan, Iran, Egypt and Yemen. She received her bach- elor’s and master’s degrees the University of Maryland, College Park, and also completed a fellowship at Georgetown University. Neeru Lal is a career Foreign Service Information Technology Officer, who has served in Ouagadougou, New Delhi, Tri-Mission Brus- sels and Tri-Mission Rome. She is currently serving in the Bureau of Information Resources, Public Affairs and Communications Office. Lal recently graduated from IRM’s Executive Devel- opment Program, a year of Call for 2015 AFSA Award Nominees Do you know someone who has worked constructively within the system to change policy? Has someone in your com- munity made an extra effort in service or volunteerism or shown exemplary performance? Have you? Recognize these achievements with a nomination for an AFSA award! Nominations for the 2015 AFSA awards will be accepted at any time through Feb. 28, 2015. Anyone may submit a nomination for a colleague or even for oneself. Please visit the AFSA website to read more about the award categories (http://www.afsa.org/awards ). Details on how to submit nominations differ for each award and are listed within each category. The awards are administered by Perri Green, the coordi- nator for special awards and outreach. She can be reached at green@afsa.org and (202) 719-9700. dedicated executive prepa- ration at FSI and National Defense University, where she earned the chief infor- mation officer certificate for completion of the Advanced Management Program and is currently working on her master’s degree in govern- ment information leader- ship. She holds a bachelor’s degree in business admin- istration information sci- ences from the University of Maryland and speaks French, Italian and Hindi. AFSA sincerely thanks outgoing State Representa- tives Michael D. Thomas, E. Alex Copher, Lillian Wahl- Tuco and David Zwach for their stalwart service on the Governing Board. n