THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2023 65 AFSA NEWS On July 5, the State Department issued a general solicitation for former mid-level Foreign Service officers who had resigned (but not retired) within the past five years to consider reentry into the Service. The notice is part of a broader effort to recruit and retain talent to address significant staffing deficits in the State Department’s mid-ranks. AFSA helped publicize this call to all our Foreign Service members, including those who have resigned. AFSA strongly supports making Foreign Service reentry more streamlined and less bureaucratically challenging. We have heard from members that the current process can take up to two years and requires candidates to jump through numerous bureaucratic hoops. We hope the new call involves a substantial improvement in procedures. AFSA also believes that actively inviting former Foreign Service members to apply for reentry is a much preferable option to general mid-level entry. Deploying former Foreign Service members who are already trained and aware of the rigors of overseas service makes more sense to us as a productive and frugal way to expeditiously fill positions that form the backbone of our Foreign Service workforce. As it happens, the widely read FSJ Speaking Out article by Sonnet Frisbie, “Boomerang Diplomats? Another Look at Reappointment,” published in the July-August issue, argues that creating a more streamlined policy for the reentry of former Foreign Service members would be well worth the effort. Expanded reappointment, she says, would strengthen retention and diversity in the workforce, cost-effectively upskill the department’s mid-levels, and achieve incremental positive change. Read the full article at https://bit.ly/ BoomerangDiplomats. n Mid-Level FS Reentry Program NEWS BRIEF MARY DALY RETIREE REPRESENTATIVE Mary Daly is a senior adviser in the Department of State’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs where she works on Holocaust restitution issues. She was a political officer in the Foreign Service for 23 years, serving as political counselor, speechwriter, policy planner, and legislative liaison, among other assignments, before retiring early to care for a family member. Since retiring, she has served as chief of staff for the coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts, directed the Franklin Fellow program, and served as a senior inspector in the Office of the Inspector General and as editor in chief of the department’s “Report to Congress on International Religious Freedom” in addition to her work in EUR. Ms. Daly served as AFSA’s director of advocacy and speechwriting from July 2017 to March 2018. In that capacity, she built relationships for AFSA with House and Senate Appropriations and Authorizations Committee members and staff, and helped launch the Friends of the Foreign Service caucus. This will be her third consecutive term on the AFSA Governing Board. EDWARD G. STAFFORD RETIREE REPRESENTATIVE Ed Stafford is a retired FSO now living in southern New Jersey after serving for 27 years in the Foreign Service, mostly in political-military affairs assignments. Since retiring in November 2016, Mr. Stafford has busied himself with volunteer work near his new hometown of Brigantine, N.J., including teaching English as a second language to recently arrived immigrants, preparing adolescents for sacraments at his church, and leading several theological discussion groups. He particularly looks forward to serving AFSA members by being responsive to the interests and concerns of the FS retiree community. Mr. Stafford’s wife, Nancy, is a retired FS human resources officer. They have three adult sons and five grandchildren. n
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