The Foreign Service Journal, November 2010

AFSA Mourns Passing of Former Executive Director BY IAN HOUSTON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR It is with sadness that I report the passing of former AFSA Executive Director John Mamone. John passed away peacefully with his family at his side in late August. It was a pleasure to work with John dur- ing the short time he was here at AFSA. He brought a sense of humor, an understand- ing manner and a friendly personality to his work. He had many talents. On behalf of the AFSA staff, I bid a sincere farewell to our former colleague. I know you will share the hope that those closest to him will be comforted in their time of loss. Now Available — College Scholarship Applications for FS Kids High school seniors and college under- graduate children of Foreign Service employees (active-duty, retired and deceased) are eligible to apply for one- time-only AFSA academic/art merit awards and renewable, need-based AFSA financial aid scholarships for the 2011- 2012 school year. Academic and art merit awards are $1,800, and financial aid schol- arships range from $1,000 to $3,500. Applications will be available on Nov. 15, and the submission deadline is Feb. 6, 2011. For complete details and to down- load forms, please visit www.afsa.org/ scholar or contact Lori Dec at (202) 944- 5504, or 1 (800) 704-2372, ext. 504 (toll- free) or by e-mail at dec@afsa.org . B y the time you read this, I hope we’ll have a new deputy director general for the Commercial Service—and I also hope he or she will be a Foreign Service officer. Every other Foreign Service agency assigns its deputy DG position to an offi- cer togive theDGfirsthandexperiencewith howtheorganizationworks internationally. After all, if we are not an international-fac- ing organization, what are we? It would be especially bad for the organization tobring a deputyDGin from theoutside at this critical time,whenmorale is under great strain. The largest pool of experienced senior government employees in the International TradeAdministration are Foreign Service officers, and senior ForeignService officers have ably served in the deputyDGposition at least three times in the recent past. I can only hope this is all moot by the time this article appears, adding another feather of good decisions to our DG’s cap. And if so, it will be especially important to give the new deputy DG all the support we can. Wemust prove he or she has the support of the organization and help to get the job done. On other fronts, both our House and Senate committees have passed the appro- priations bills for ITA, but they are $10 million apart in their allocations. Both pro- posals represent a long-needed and substantial increase for the Commercial Service; but we need to fight for the higher figure. Still, nothing will happen by way of a final bill before the November elections. Nor should it be a surprise to anyone that cuts inthat increasedbudgetwill be coming in2012. Defending theNational Export Initiative budget is still our number-one priority. For that reason, I urge you to consider the AFSA president’s fundraising appeal for AFSA-PAC. We also welcomed a new class of 16 FCS officers and, for the first time in mem- ory, they were given a full four weeks of commercial training together as a class. A heartywelcome toournewcolleagues! With the increasedbudget, a strongnewdeputy DG who knows us (I hope), a new officer class, and efforts to get training back on track, there are a lot of good reasons to believe we have turned the corner. Now let’s hope we can build on that momentum. ❏ Editor’s Note: At the time this article went to print, Driector Suresh Kumar named AmbassadorCharles “Chuck”Ford to thedeputyDGposition. Ford servedasVicePresident for FCS on the 2003-2005 AFSA Governing Board. NOV EMB E R 2 0 1 0 / F OR E I GN S E R V I C E J OU R N A L 65 A F S A N E W S V.P. VOICE: FCS ■ BY KEITH CURTIS Good News for the Foreign Commercial Service – We Hope I can only hope this is all moot by the time this article appears, and that we can add another feather of good decisions to our DG’s cap. AFSA NEWS BRIEFS