The Foreign Service Journal, December 2003

A FSA would like to recognize the outstanding contribution to the association made by our longest- serving staff member, Janet Hedrick. Janet joined theAFSA staff 15 years ago, one year out of college. She spent a year in thegrievancedepartment before moving over to membership. Janet’s job as AFSA’s member services director has grown over the years to include man- agement not only of member- ship but also of the AFSAWeb site, AFSANETs and the AFSA insurance programs. When Janet came to AFSA in 1988, the association had 9,100 members. Today AFSAhas a recordmembership of over 12,300 employees and retirees. Janet has played a significant role in bring- ing in newmembers and increasing effi- ciency in the membership department. Janet explains that AFSA has become much “more efficient at lettingmembers knowwhat AFSAdoes for them,” and this has helpedmembership recruiting efforts. In1998, AFSAhadno faxmachine, no e-mail capability andonly one PC. At that time, address changes for members took over amonth. Today, because of progress in e-mail andWeb services ledby Janet, it now takes only a minute to make changes. Under her leadership, AFSA is currently undergoing amajor technological transition to new,more-advanced associa- tion management software thatwill greatly improveman- agement ofmembershippro- grams and all other AFSA departments as well. When Janet joined AFSA, specialists made up only 20 percent of active-duty membership; today they constitute 40 percent. Janet was among the first to rec- ognize the importance of specialists to AFSA’s mission and membership com- munity. She is the one who initiated the specialist recruiting lunches for new hires 14 years ago that continue today, introducing specialists to all the AFSA ser- vices tomembers. Prior to that, only the A-100 generalists were invited to AFSA to learn about the organization. “Janet has been a truly dedicated staff member of AFSA these 15 years,” Executive Director Susan Reardon tells AFSANews , “and I really admire her abil- ity to help AFSA stay current in mem- bership management.” Janet took on management of the firstWeb site in 1995 and led the efforts to set up e-mail com- munication with members through the 1990s. “She’s now the leader of the team upgrading the membership manage- ment system to be trulyWeb-integrated, a new system that we’re rolling out next year,” says Susan. “Without her experi- ence, this process would be much more difficult.” Janet explains that she has stayed at AFSA for so many years because “AFSA is a great place to work, and I think we have a great staff here.” The expansion of themembership department’s respon- sibilities has kept thework challenging and interesting. Janet appreciates the fact that AFSA truly is a family-friendly organiza- tion, offering flexible schedules for many employees. Janet and her husband, Paul, have four children. ▫ 6 $)6$ 1(:6 ‡ '(&(0%(5 York who has a spare bedroom or an empty top bunk in Junior’s bedroom should please consider putting up one of these agents-in-training. So it’s come to this. We are askingnew hires tocomeonboard, bepart of the team, yetwe don’t evenhave the decency topro- vide funding tohouse themfor temporary duty in one of themost expensive cities in the country? Does this send the rightmes- sage about how management views their service? Will this create a favorable first impression of their new employer, make themproud towork for an institution that takes care of its troops? WhenAFSA learned of this, we got on the horn to the higher-ups in DS and, to their credit, they responded quickly. The department still cannot pay per diem or travel costs, but now employees have an alternative to theout-of-pocket travel: They don’t have to go to New York. They can stay here in Washington before going on to training at theFederal LawEnforcement TrainingCenter. Because AFSA sounded the alarm, nowthe employees at least have a choice not to go out-of-pocket. Now that the higher-ups are engaged on this issue, AFSA is hopeful that they will resolve it once and for all for DS new hires. That will set a precedent for all the other parts of the department that also hire specialists, albeit in fewer numbers. We’ll keep fighting this one, and let you know once logic and lodgings (NOT spare beds) prevail. ▫ INSIDE AFSA: JANET HEDRICK Member Services Director Crosses 15-Year Mark BY SHAWN DORMAN Per Diem • Continued from page 5 AFSA Responds to Pat Robertson Thanks to all those who sent AFSA messages of support for our letter to the Rev. Pat Robertson following his outrageous October comments about destroying the State Department with a nuclear device. The response from the field and from retired colleagues to AFSA’s efforts to counter Robertson’s remarks was overwhelming and pos- itive. To read the full text of the AFSA letter to Pat Robertson, go to www.afsa.org/robertsonletter.cfm. ▫ Janet Hedrick