The Foreign Service Journal, October 2014

26 OCTOBER 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Agents of Change e most compelling reasons for changes in the specialist eld in recent years can be summed up in two words: terrorism and technology . Terrorism . Specialist jobs were greatly a ected by the African embassy bombings of the late 1990s, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with certain tracks hiring more people and others evolving to re ect needs of the Service. Specialists employed through State’s Overseas Building O ce, such as Construction Engineers and Facility Manag- ers, have gone through a sea change in focus that began even earlier. is shift took shape in response to the 1983 bombing of Embassy Beirut and the subsequent release of the 1985 Inman Report on Overseas Security that focused on creating safer U.S. embassy buildings. ose overseas missions deemed too close to the street, or in the middle of a crowded inner-city area, were either given up or reconstructed. “Since the East African bombings in 1998 in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Congress placed a much greater commitment towards funding security-driven construction at our diplomatic facilities,” explains Eric Rumpf, managing director for the Con- struction, Facility and Security Management Directorate in OBO. “ is support enabled OBO to complete more new embassies and consulates for the department than at any other time in our history.” Diplomatic Security, not surprisingly, has seen a growth in budget and personnel since 9/11. “When I entered the Foreign Service in 1997,” recalls DS’s Catipon, “there were 600-700 DS agents. Now it’s over 2,000.” He adds: “DS can be very picky because agent jobs are competitive. We’ll have a job opening for, say, a month, and get over 10,000 applicants for just a few dozen positions.” With this rapid growth, Catipon has seen infrastructure and bureaucracy struggle to keep up: “ ere has been a big increase in all types of specialists, like Security Engineering O cers and Security Technical Specialists. e African bombings and other incidents, unfortunately, served as a catalyst for more funding from Congress for keeping us safe.” One long-serving Diplomatic Courier agrees. “Since Benghazi [Sept. 11, 2012], there’s been direction from the very top that safety and security are more important. e evolution is slow, but it’s happening.” Terrorism, warfare and other high-threat events have also caused MED to increase the number of Regional Medical O cers/Psychiatrists. Says Director of MED’s Mental Health Services Kenneth Dekleva: “While the RMO/P program began in 1979 following terrorist events such as the tragic assassination of Ambassador Adolph Dubs in Kabul, and the 1979 hostage-taking in Tehran, it has subsequently grown to encompass a larger clinical role, in addition to its traditional roots in crisis/disaster response and consultation to senior leadership.” Dekleva notes that the number of RMO/Ps has nearly doubled in the past decade. ose specialists who reach out to local populations have felt the e ects of terrorism, as well. “Before 9/11, I had the feeling that my job was almost ‘adjunct’ to public diplomacy; i.e., one of several cultural/educational resources provided by the State Department at U.S. embassies worldwide,” says recently retired Regional English Language O cer Michael Rudder. After 9/11, Rudder recalls, there was a meeting of all cultural and press attachés assigned to a large South American country: “ e Public A airs O cer said, ‘Our top priority now is English- language teaching.’ is comment somewhat startled me, but also made me aware of the new role our o ce was playing. From that moment, my job seemed to be given more attention and importance in the bigger picture, and the powers-that-be started noticing the work we were doing and its bene ts to broader goals.” Technology. At the same time, technology advances have greatly a ected the work of FS specialists. It’s a given that those in information technology must stay abreast of the latest advances, but they can only move as fast as the State Depart- ment bureaucracy will let them. While BlackBerries have been State’s chosen method of telephony for many reasons, mostly to do with security, more and more iPads are being distributed in lieu of, or in addition to, laptops. As communications are now digitized, “sending in a cable” doesn’t actually happen these days, despite continued usage of the phrase. David Jesser is an IT manager who joined the Foreign Service The most compelling reasons for changes in the specialist field in recent years can be summed up in two words: terrorism and technology.