AFSA NEWS 64 SEPTEMBER 2023 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL JAY CARREIRO ALTERNATE FCS REPRESENTATIVE Jay Carreiro is a career Foreign Service officer and a 22-year veteran of the Commerce Department. He served as AFSA vice president from 2019 to 2022 and is currently the commercial consul in Düsseldorf, Germany. Mr. Carreiro first joined the Commercial Service in 2009, serving as special assistant to the deputy assistant secretary for international operations. Other assignments include Rio de Janeiro, where he was responsible for promoting U.S. commercial interests in a variety of areas including energy, safety and security, architecture, construction and engineering, naval defense, aviation, and the 2016 Summer Olympics. After leaving Brazil, he served as director for the Business Liaison Office and special adviser to the U.S. executive director at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, D.C. Originally from Massachusetts, he holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and public administration from Rhode Island College, and a master of public administration and juris doctor degrees from Rutgers University. He is married with one child and, when in the U.S., lives in Alexandria, Va. ZEKE SPEARS ALTERNATE FAS REPRESENTATIVE Zeke Spears joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2016. He worked in Washington, D.C., on bilateral and multilateral trade issues prior to departing in 2019 for his first overseas assignment, in Tokyo. He is currently in language training for his next assignment, in Seoul. Prior to joining the Foreign Agricultural Service, Mr. Spears worked with agribusiness, industry groups, and farmers as an agriculture and environmental policy consultant based in Washington, D.C. Originally from Atlanta, Ga., he holds degrees from Georgia Southern University and American University. Mr. Spears is married to a Department of State Foreign Service officer. JOSEPH RAGOLE APHIS REPRESENTATIVE Joseph M. Ragole is the area director for South Asia for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, posted in New Delhi. He began his Foreign Service career resolving trade issues in Brussels at the U.S. Mission to the European Union. He subsequently served in Santo Domingo, where he helped coordinate the initial response to an outbreak of African swine fever. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Mr. Ragole worked on domestic regulatory programs with APHIS, including export certification and emergency programs such as fruit fly outbreak eradication. Mr. Ragole also served as an agriculture specialist with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Mr. Ragole holds a bachelor’s degree in ecology and German from the University of Colorado, Boulder. An avid motorcyclist and enthusiast of all things mechanical, he is joined in New Delhi by his wife and their son. STEVEN L. HERMAN USAGM REPRESENTATIVE Steve Herman is the Voice of America’s chief national correspondent and former White House bureau chief. The veteran correspondent has been a member of the Foreign Service since 2007 when he was named VOA’s South Asia bureau chief, based in New Delhi. After his India posting, Mr. Herman was Northeast Asia bureau chief, based in Seoul, and then Southeast Asia bureau chief in Bangkok. He returned stateside in 2016 to cover diplomacy at the State Department and traveled extensively with then–Secretary of State John Kerry. Mr. Herman spent 16 years living in Tokyo, working in media, before joining VOA as a staff correspondent. He is also a former news reporter for the Associated Press and began his career in radio and television news in Las Vegas. He is a former president of both the Japan Foreign Correspondents’ Club and the Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club and an adjunct lecturer of journalism at the University of Richmond. This will be his second consecutive term as USAGM representative on the AFSA Governing Board.
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