Personal & Mission Statement
I am a new history teacher, retired U.S. diplomat, and lawyer with think tank and Capitol Hill experience whose State Department career included serving as the U.S. Embassy Berlin’s spokesperson in 2017-2018. I would like to contribute to GAHF becoming a dynamic, program-rich, well-resourced national organization that highlights the historic and ongoing contributions of German-Americans by strengthening its engagement with the U.S. government, think tanks and other relevant policy and academic organizations institutions in Washington, D.C. and its outreach to interested Americans and Germans in the U.S.
During my 30+ years at State, I spent most of my career as a political officer (and later as a public diplomacy officer) working on European and South Asian issues. In addition to my stint in Berlin, I am a retired U.S. diplomat, fluent in German, who recently worked with the European foreign press corps, including the German press corps, in Washington. My time at the State Department included a year as the spokesperson of the U.S. Embassy in Berlin in 2017-18, a short stint as a senior advisor on the Germany Desk, and I served for two years as the Austria Desk Officer. I spent most of my career as a political officer and later as a public diplomacy officer working on European and South Asian issues. In 2014-2015, as a senior fellow on loan to the Atlantic Council, I organized a “next generation” report to strengthen U.S.-German relations, to include selecting the six young German and six young American fellows to write it. In 2004-2005, I was a foreign affairs fellow for U.S. Senator John E. Sununu (R-NH).
Before joining State, I worked for two years as an associate for a German American law firm in New York City — Walter, Conston, Alexander & Green — that specialized in German business. I have a master’s degree in international relations from Johns Hopkins University SAIS, a law degree from Vanderbilt University, and a bachelor’s degree in history and German from Duke University. My junior year in college, I studied at the Philipps-Universität in Marburg, W. Germany. While in school, I also lived for two summers with German families in the Black Forest and Bavaria. I began learning German as a teenager when my father was posted to Frankfurt am Main with the U.S. Army. I would be honored to serve as a Director again 2nd Vice President after serving in 2022-2023 as a GAHF Director and in 2023-2025 as Second Vice President.
Accomplishments This Year and Hopes for Another Term
Over the past year, I provided comments and suggested revisions on the GAHF’s by-laws, wrote draft materials that could be used to assist the Board in briefing new Board members, provided comments and suggested revisions on the case for support, reviewed scholarship applications, and pulled together a draft action plan for a proposed Washington Area Outreach Committee. If I were to be nominated for and elected to another term on the Board as a director, I would hope to work closely with Katja Sipple to boost involvement by Washington-area think tanks and policy organizations, such as the American-German Institute and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, and Washington-area academic institutions with German departments in GAHF/GAHM programming. I would also be happy to serve as chair of the Membership Committee. In that capacity, I would seek to boost membership by partnering more closely with German and Austrian-themed restaurants, bakeries and bars in the Washington area. This will require a flyer and a new brochure. I would also like to find a corporate sponsor to enable us to produce a professional 2 to 3-minute video about GAHF/GAHM that could reside on our website and be used to introduce and publicize GAHF.