In-House Briefs
FrontLines - September 2009
Agency Urged to Hire More with Disabilities
USAID should hire more persons with severe disabilities, said a senior administration official at an Agency senior staff meeting Aug 6.
Christine Griffin, recently confirmed
as deputy director of the Office of Personnel Management, said that USAID employees with severe disabilities were just .77 percent of its workforce, less than the federal average of .88 percent and far below the 1980s when nearly 2 percent of the federal work force had severe disabilities.
Griffin said college and university placement officials are reluctant to identify students with disabilities to recruiters and suggested that USAID contact the disability services office at each campus.
Since USAID has programs to assist the disabled abroad, Griffin said, it “would be great” if a person with a disability was representing the Agency in carrying
out these programs. Gloria Steele of the Global Health Bureau announced that she has become the leader of an affinity
group for USAID disabled employees.—B.B.
James Michel
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James Michel Returns to USAID as Counselor
James Michel has returned to the Agency as counselor, the number three position in the Agency leadership and one that he held in 1999-2000.
He succeeds Lisa Chiles, who retired recently after many years of service at USAID.
Since 2001, Michel had been an independent consultant in development cooperation and senior counsel to DPK Consulting, a division of ARD Inc. that specializes
in support for good governance
and the rule of law.
Michel joined the State Department as an attorney in 1965 and served as the deputy legal adviser (1977-1982) and as the principal deputy assistant secretary of state for inter-American
affairs (1983-1987).
He was U.S. ambassador to Guatemala from 1987 to1989 and joined USAID in 1990 as assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean. He later served as counselor, acting deputy administrator, and acting administrator. From 1994 to 1999, he was chair of the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Summer Interns Consider Careers at USAID
Acting Administrator Alonzo Fulgham and then-Counselor Lisa Chiles thanked the Agency’s summer interns for their work at a reception July 30 and urged them to consider returning to USAID.
“I hope you have had a great internship and will be coming
out to work with us soon,” Fulgham said at a reception hosted at USAID headquarters by the Hispanic Employee Council of Foreign Affairs Agencies. “It looks like we have the best and the brightest right here in this room and we just need to figure out how to get you back into the building.”
Chiles told the interns that “there’s general and broad recognition around Washington about the importance of rebuilding
the USAID workforce.”
Intern Fabiana Perera said she plans to apply for the Development Leadership Initiative after graduation, saying: “I want to pursue development and public service—my supervisors
were so positive about the work they do. They just love what they do and showed that in the office every day.”—L.A.
USAID-supported Scientist Wins World Food Prize
Gebisa Ejeta, who was supported
by USAID grants, won the 2009 World Food Prize for developing
drought and disease resistant
sorghum varieties that are now widely grown across Africa. The Ethiopian-born scientist will receive his $250,000 award on the steps of the Iowa State Capitol.
“The fact that I come from a poor background has given me the empathy to understand the difficulties of life in rural Africa,” said Ejeta. “You need to work with famers and demonstrate
to them how this technology
you developed is better than what they practice,” the Purdue University professor added.
With USAID support, his crops are now grown in his home country as well as in Eritrea, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. USAID supported Ejeta’s education from high school in Ethiopia through his doctorate program at Purdue.—L.A.
USAID’s Addleton Named Ambassador to Mongolia
Jonathan Addleton, USAID’s counselor for international development at the U.S. mission
to the European Union in Brussels, was named ambassador
to Mongolia July 2 and confirmed by the Senate Aug. 7.
He had lived in Mongolia from 2001 to 2004 on USAID assignment.
Addleton said he asked to be ambassador to Mongolia because it was “the most effective aid program
I’ve been a part of.”
He also served as USAID director in Pakistan (2006-2007) and Cambodia (2004-2006); and as program officer in Jordan, Kazakhstan, South Africa, and Yemen.
Addleton was raised in Pakistan where his parents served as missionaries. He authored Some Far and Distant Place, a memoir on his childhood in Pakistan (University of Georgia Press).
President Barack Obama also nominated Gayleatha Beatrice Brown as ambassador to Burkina Faso. Brown is currently the U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Benin. She served at USAID as an economic development officer and as a special assistant to the asistant administrator for Africa.—A.A.M.
Aaron Williams
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Williams New Peace Corps Head
President Barack Obama announced July 14 that he will nominate Aaron Williams, a former
senior USAID official, to be director of the Peace Corps. He was sworn in as the 18th director Aug. 24.
Williams had been the vice president for international business
development with RTI International. He has designed assistance programs in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia and reached the rank of career minister in the Senior Foreign Service. He also served in the Dominican Republic as a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1960s.
He was awarded the USAID Distinguished Career Service Award in 1998 and the Presidential Award for Distinguished Service in 1992 and 1988.
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