International Trade Administration,
U.S. Department of Commerce
Marie A. Westbrook, Ph.D.
Director
Office of Professional Development
In July 2005, Dr. Westbrook joined the Department of Commerce ITA/USFCS as executive director for the USFCS Office of Professional Development.
Marie brings to the Department and ITA/USFCS, a commitment to leadership in government, customer service and high performance.
Dr. Westbrook is a 1993 graduate of the University of Virginia, where she received her doctoral degree in Comparative Education, and interdisciplinary studies in Government and Foreign Affairs and Russian Studies. Marie is also a recipient of a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration, awarded with distinction from Mary Baldwin College.
Dr. Westbrook’s academic work has received recognition with appointments as a fellow with the Kennan Institute/Woodrow Wilson Center (1993/1997) and field research awards with Stanford University Summer Institute (1992) and the Social Science Research Council (1992). In more recent years, Dr. Westbrook has completed studies on executive leadership development at Harvard University’s JFK School of Government (2004) and the Federal Executive Institute (2004). She continues to serve as an advisor on leadership development within the federal executive community.
Throughout her career, Dr. Westbrook has worked on change management, organizational development and democracy-building initiatives with USG agencies and international non-profit organizations. She specializes in infrastructure development (education systems, judicial systems, governance structures) and economic improvement programs (micro grants, public/private partnerships, commerce).
From 1993 to 2000, Dr. Westbrook worked extensively with non-profit organizations on technical assistance and government reform projects in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. In her role as project director, Marie worked closely with U.S. experts and regional government and non-governmental authorities on the design, development and implementation of nation-wide education improvement and civil society reform programs in Russia and the Republics of Armenia, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan.
Marie’s service to the federal government includes her work as a program manager at the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (2000-2004) where she supervised international partnerships and training projects in 14 countries worldwide for which she was awarded the U.S. Department of State’s “Franklin Award” (2000) and the Secretary of State’s Award for Extraordinary Service (2002).
Marie has also served as program director (2004-2005) for leadership development and executive training with the Agricultural Marketing Service Training Institute (USDA), where she established an agency-wide leadership development initiative promoting competency-based professional development and high performance workplace practices.