The Foreign Service Journal, December 2021

40 DECEMBER 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL AFSA Post Representative of the Year Charlee Doom Two-Time Winner Goes Beyond the Call of Duty C harlee Doom, a USAID Foreign Service officer, regularly goes beyond what is expected of an AFSA post representative. Serving as a post rep for a second time, this time in Amman, she not only helped AFSA members in Jordan’s capital, but also those from her previous post, Nairobi. She even helped members from other posts where she had not served. For her exceptional efforts in Amman from 2018 to 2020, Ms. Doom has been selected as the AFSA Post Representative of the Year for a second time. She also received the award in 2015 for her work at Embassy Nairobi. “Serving as an AFSA post representative is an incredibly rewarding element of my service as an FSO,” Ms. Doom says. “Having an opportunity to advocate with and on behalf of my colleagues and to work strategically with AFSA staff affords a spe- cial window into a broader view of the Foreign Service. Earning this award for a second time for effectively supporting and advo- cating with and for my colleagues, and hopefully making their lives easier or less stressful, is a tremendous honor.” Ms. Doom stood out for her activism on behalf of mem- bers, her willingness to man- age complex issues from post and to intervene directly with a range of Washington actors, including USAID’s Office of Civil Rights and Diversity, and for the sophisticated nature of her interactions with the AFSA USAID VP’s office. Ms. Doom knows the Foreign Affairs Manual and the USAID Automated Directives System well. She frequently researched answers to member questions rather than referring them to oth- ers. A number of Ms. Doom’s former constituents from Nairobi chose to continue working with her, even after her departure for Amman, on cases that persisted until nearly the end of her Amman tour. Ms. Doommanaged more than 15 complex individual personnel matters from Amman, including one security case in which an officer had virtually no support at post, but with AFSA assistance, the officer was eventually able to exonerate herself of all wrongdoing. Ms. Doom has such a strong reputation as an AFSA rep that she occasionally took on cases from posts where she had never served. She also acted informally at several posts where there was no AFSA post rep. The AFSA USAID VP’s office looked to Ms. Doom as its go-to rep when her counterparts at other missions sought peer advice or counseling, or needed a model of how to be successful as an AFSA rep. On institutional matters, Ms. Doom was instrumental in convinc- ing high-ranking per- sonnel at one large post to abandon their threats to retaliate against officers who sought to Charlee Doom. Charlee Doom (at far left) moderates a panel on USAID’s Local Enterprise Support Project and Women’s Economic Empowerment in Amman, Jordan, in 2020.