The Foreign Service Journal, December 2021

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | DECEMBER 2021 43 “These past 18 months under COVID-19 restrictions further strengthened my belief in the need for continued strong union representation.” related to the pandemic (and to the promotion process in a tumultuous year), he polled the AFSA membership at his post to determine the kinds of questions employees had. If individuals did not wish to pose those questions themselves, he raised them on behalf of his constituency, serving as the voice for dozens of more junior employees at the mission. Thanks to Mr. Chester’s thorough knowledge of the Foreign Affairs Manual and the USAID Automated Directives System, he has spent many lunch hours counseling AFSA members about what they need to know about their rights. On group matters beyond those related to the pandemic, Mr. Chester assisted several entry-level USAID officers whose tenure was inadvertently held up for three years, advising State personnel about how the two agencies could work together more productively to resolve the situation. He also provided guidance to a number of Civil Service employees trying to make the complicated switch to the Foreign Service. He played a helpful role in several discrimination cases, and generally kept morale up among a group of employees who felt discouraged by circumstances. Mr. Chester joined USAID in 2004 and has served in Afghani- stan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Pakistan. In Pakistan, he was the director of the mission’s Khyber-Pakh- tunkhwa Regional Office, overseeing a dynamic $1 billion port- folio aimed at mitigating and countering the influence of violent extremism on the border with Afghanistan. He has previously served as an agriculture officer, private sector officer and energy officer. In May, he joined the USAID/Madagascar Mission as the new director of the Integrated Development and Emergency Assistance Office. Prior to joining USAID, he worked for an environmental think-tank in Washington, D.C., and as a Peace Corps volun- teer in Senegal. He holds M.S. degrees from the University of California–Davis, in agricultural economics and international agricultural development. n