Explain Yourself THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | DECEMBER 2024 61 FAS VP VOICE | BY EVAN MANGINO AFSA NEWS Contact: mangino@afsa.org I learned many important lessons as a first-tour officer in Tokyo. Among them was this: Never assume someone knows what you do or who you are—even if you just told them. In Tokyo, I helped our Agricultural Trade Office team host roughly 60 U.S. companies in the USA Pavilion each year at Japan’s largest food and beverage tradeshow. For four years, I would kick off the tradeshow with a country briefing, educating a packed room of 40-50 U.S. exhibitors about FAS, our programs in Japan, and the latest economic conditions in the Japanese market. Throughout the show, I’d regularly drop by exhibitors’ booths to talk about their products, their experience at the show, and any challenges my office might be able to help them overcome. Through these conversations, I got to know the exhibitors—especially those that came back every year. I got to know about their families, their career goals, big projects they were working on, you name it. It was retail public service. I was the friendly, helpful face of the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service. And I was crushing it. Or so I thought. In my fourth and final year in Tokyo, I started talking about my next assignment and how I’d miss all my tradeshow friends the following year. Incredulously, an exhibitor for whom I’d written a letter of recommendation for a graduate degree program replied, “Wait a minute. You work for the government? I thought you just worked for the tradeshow!” I was reeling. What about the country brief during which they took copious notes? What about the USDA logos? What about when I brought Ambassador Caroline Kennedy to the pavilion? None of that had registered; my role as a Foreign Service officer was completely misunderstood. I asked more exhibitors, and virtually none of them knew that FAS had helped foot the bill for the pavilion, let alone that our dedicated team of locally employed staff was ready to help them resolve trade issues, navigate Japanese government bureaucracy, and so much more. It was a humbling and extremely useful lesson for an entry-level officer. Since that day, I’ve never assumed that anyone I’m talking to has any idea who I am or what I do. It was at that show that I developed my FAS elevator speech, explaining who FAS is, what we do, and why. I had assumed that our tradeshow exhibitors were intelligent, capable people (they are) who would put the pieces together on their own (they didn’t). And though I feared “selling” my agency so directly could be off-putting to some, I concluded taxpayers’ lack of understanding about FAS’ role would be a greater risk to the FAS mission. Much to my delight, my 30-second summary (see box) has nearly always lit the proverbial light bulb above my audience’s head in the seven years since. Ironically, this is a useful lesson even within my own agency, where our 150(ish) Foreign Service officers are a relatively small group in comparison to our roughly 600 civil service colleagues or the 350 or so locally employed staff. As I take the baton from my predecessor and engage with a new agency negotiating team, I look forward to sharing with them the experiences, the wisdom, and the passion that FAS officers like me bring to our work. I am confident that by explaining our wide range of experiences—along with not assuming, suppressing ego, thinking creatively, setting clear expectations, and working hard—we’ll be able to find mutually agreeable improvements in agency policy and procedures that will carry FAS forward more effectively, more efficiently, and with better morale. n The Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with 95 offices in 75 countries, works to expand U.S. agricultural exports in three key ways. First, FAS uses trade policy to ensure U.S. food and agricultural products can legally enter overseas markets. Second, it promotes U.S. products and builds demand by working with around 70 U.S. agricultural trade associations, providing matching funds to help them reach a broader audience. Third, in developing countries, FAS provides trade capacity building and non-humanitarian food assistance to promote economic development. More broadly, FAS also supports global agricultural trade through rigorous economic analysis and market intelligence, including its Global Agricultural Information Network (GAIN) and contributions to USDA reports such as the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE). n The Elevator Pitch for FAS
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