The Foreign Service Journal, September 2019

70 SEPTEMBER 2019 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL AFSA NEWS Professional Careers for FS Family Members: AWebinar On June 6, AFSA hosted a webinar on employment options for Foreign Service family members around the world. “Stories of Success: Maintaining a Professional Career as a Foreign Service Family Member” focused on offering ideas for fam- ily members on how to find and maintain professional careers outside the embassy environment. Four Foreign Service fam- ily members addressed the 68-person audience, explain- ing how they flourished in professional careers, how they overcame obstacles, and how and why they made trade-offs. The panel of speakers showcased the diversity of professional careers that can be held by Foreign Service family members: a current regional senior manager at the International Finance Corporation (the private-sec- tor arm of the World Bank), an attorney working for Dis- ney, a certified financial plan- ner, and a published author and associate editor of The Foreign Service Journal. Family member employ- ment is a top concern for the highly mobile Foreign Service community. It is an issue that comes up again and again in AFSA’s structured con- versations with members. AFSA Director of Professional Policy Issues Julie Nutter (left) and Senior Manager for Programming and Member Engagement Christine Miele participate in a webinar on family member employment. AFSA/CAMERONWOODWORTH The speakers did their best to answer all the questions from family members who registered for the webinar and generously answered follow-up questions by email. The webinar can be viewed at afsa.org/video. n AFSA Promotes Economic, World Diplomacy In outreach efforts over the summer AFSA has continued to promote the “Economic Diplomacy Works” theme, which is the focus of a year- long effort. We have found new venues in which to show our new animated explainer video on economic diplomacy, as well as share our updated speaker packet that accompanies the video. We thank all of the speakers who have made use of these new materials. If you have used the video or talking points, we would love feedback on how audiences are receiving them. As usual, AFSA offered a weeklong Road Scholar program at the Chautauqua Institute in western New York in early June. The speak- ers at this program were Ambassador (ret.) Gordon Brown, Ambassador (ret.) Lange Schermerhorn, and retired Senior Foreign Service officers Janice Bay, Richard McKee, James Pierce and Molly Williamson. Our fall Chautauqua program will take place in mid-September, where the following speakers are scheduled to speak: retired FSOs James Benson, James Bever, Allen Keiswetter, Dr. Elizabeth Shelton and Amb. Marc Wall. As always, AFSA appreciates the willingness of our speakers to take a week out of their busy schedules to help us tell the story of the U.S. Foreign Ser- vice to the American public. Finally, in early August, AFSA offered its annual program, “Inside the World of Diplomacy,” in collaboration with Smithsonian Associates. The speakers were Ambassa- dor (ret.) Patricia Butenis and FSO Bryan Gillespie. Our relationship with Smithsonian Associates con- tinues to bear fruit, as their nationwide network gets the word out about the impor- tance of U.S. diplomacy to a large audience. Next spring, we hope to offer a multiweek program focused on Africa as part of our series with them. If you are not yet part of AFSA’s Speakers Bureau, we encour- age you to join! Visit www. afsa.org/speaker and sign up. We would be happy to have you on board. n Still shot from AFSA’s “Economic Diplomacy” video.