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Flags, Seals, Cultural Taboos Are Task of First
Protocol Officer
ANE’s Gender Adviser Wins State Award
Agency Motivates Disabled Youth, Promotes Jobs
Assistant Administrators Kunder, Menarchik, Pierson Confirmed
Flags, Seals, Cultural Taboos Are Task of First Protocol
Officer
Flags of every nation, seals of every possible size, portable
staging, and namecards are some of the things overseen by
Luigi Crespo, the Agency's first protocol officer.
Until Crespo's position within the Bureau for Legislative
and Public Affairs (LPA) was created in 2003, a foreign dignitary
visiting USAID headquarters was informally received by the
Agency's desk officer for the country.
"Now, it's more standardized. Prior to 2003, we were
not properly outfitted to receive a distinguished guest or
organize a major function in the building. We are now as prepared
and proper as State Department or the United Nations,"
said Crespo.
At official functions, he manages a long list of duties,
including the coordination of invitations and responses, flag
and seal etiquette, seating arrangements, name tags, and catering.
He helps pick menus, coordinates with the Office of Security,
and arranges a photographer to cover special events.
Crespo is directly involved with the logistics of all meetings
involving visiting Administration officials and foreign dignitaries
at the cabinet level or higher. For other events, such as
swearing-in ceremonies of mission directors, Crespo offers
guidance to the officer arranging the event.
In creating a protocol officer position, USAID follows the
lead of the State Department, which has over five protocol
specialists just to handle ceremonials.
Since joining the Agency, Crespo has organized and supported
more than 70 events. Among them are the recent 50th Anniversary
of the Food for Peace program, the George C. Marshall Distinguished
Lecture Series with Nobel Prize-winning Dr. Norman Borlaug,
and the visits of 30 foreign dignitaries including seven heads
of state or government.
ANE’s Gender Adviser Wins State Award
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Dr. Vijitha Eyango, with
ANE Deputy Administrator Mark Ward on her left and her
husband, Pierre Eyango, on her right.
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Dr. Vijitha
Eyango, gender advisor with the Bureau for Asia and the Near
East (ANE), received November 8 the prestigious Swanee Hunt
Award for Advancing Women’s Role in Policy Formulation
for her work to politically and economically empower women
in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“The
State Department has a strong team in their international
office for women’s issues, and we share a number of mutual
goals,” said Eyango. “This award really reflects
the spirit of cooperation between State and USAID on gender
issues.”
ince
2001 Eyango, a native Sri Lankan, has worked on integrating
gender into education and economic growth programs and on
a policy framework encouraging Afghan and Iraqi women and
facilitating their participation in politics. She was recognized
in particular for her collaboration with the State Department.
Previously,
Eyango taught at the graduate school of education at the University
of California, Los Angeles and chaired its Institute of the
Study of Gender in Africa.
“It
is a great honor for a USAID employee to win this award and
well-deserved recognition of Dr. Eyango’s outstanding
work in the gender field,” said James Kunder, Assistant
Administrator for ANE.
Eyango
is now working on USAID’s Broader Middle East and North
Africa Literacy Initiative, which is targeted at women.
Agency Motivates Disabled Youth, Promotes Jobs
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Former Miss America Heather
Whitestone McCallum was the keynote speaker at a USAID-sponsored
event marking National Disability Employment Awareness
Month.
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Former Miss America Heather Whitestone McCallum, the only
woman with a disability to be crowned Miss America, presented
the keynote address to USAID/Washington employees at an October
13 event to commemorate National Disability Employment Awareness
Month at the Ronald Reagan Building.
McCallum said that negative thinking is the biggest handicap,
and that people handicap themselves by concentrating on the
negative rather than the positive. She focused on her own
personal story and aimed to motivate others to achieve their
dreams through dedication, commitment, and hard work.
The program was sponsored jointly by the USAID’s Office
of Equal Opportunity Programs, the Department of Commerce,
the Environmental Protection Agency, and U.S. Customs and
Border Protection.
In another USAID event October 20, Disability Mentoring Day,
students and younger people with disabilities spent time shadowing
USAID personnel to see what working for the Agency is like.
It was sponsored by the American Association of People with
Disabilities and the U.S. Department of Labor to gain insight
into career options and promote employment of students with
disabilities.
“The tour arranged was informative and beneficial for
me in seeing the distinct parts, such as finance, audit, procurement,
security, and foreign assistance, that make up the well-known
USAID,” said one of the young people, Norma Moran.
“The Office of Procurement was very interesting, as
I developed a better understanding in how USAID functions.”
National Disability Employment Awareness Month was started
in 1945 with a week set aside to recognize the great potential
of people with disabilities and encourage all Americans to
work toward their full integration into the workforce. In
1998, Congress expanded the week to a month-long celebration.
This year’s theme is “You’re Hired! Success
Knows No Limitations!”
Gloria Greene-Blackwell contributed to this article.
Assistant Administrators Kunder, Menarchik, Pierson Confirmed
On Nov. 20, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations confirmed
nominees James Kunder, Dr. Douglas Menarchik, and Lloyd Pierson
for assistant administrator posts at USAID.
Kunder has been serving as Assistant Administrator for Asia
and the Near East since July under a recess appointment from
President Bush, and will continue in that position. He was
a Deputy Assistant Administrator in the same office from July
2002 to July 2004 and was the Director for Relief and Reconstruction
in Afghanistan during the first half of 2002. Kunder was also
an Assistant Administrator for USAID’s Bureau for External
Affairs and Director of the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster
Assistance under the first President Bush.
Menarchik will become the Assistant Administrator for Policy
and Program Coordination. He is replacing Patrick M. Cronin,
who is now with the Center for Strategic and International
Studies. Menarchik is currently the director of the George
Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Tex.
From 1997 to 2001, he served as director of The Center for
the Defense Leadership and Management Program at National
Defense University in Washington, D.C. In the early 1990s,
Menarchik was at the Pentagon, working on terrorism policy,
and in the mid-1990s he was a professor at Germany’s
George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in
the Department for Democratic Defense Management. A retired
Air Force officer, he served on the staff of Vice-President
Bush.
Pierson will become the Assistant Administrator for Africa,
replacing Constance Newman, who is now the Assistant Secretary
of State for African Affairs. Pierson is the chief of staff
to the director of Peace Corps. In the mid-1980s and early
1990s, he served in Africa as the Peace Corps’s Country
Director, managing programs in Ghana, Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland,
and Zimbabwe.
He later returned to Washington to be the Agency’s Associate
Director. From 1994 to 2001, Pierson headed the Africa division
of the International Republican Institute in Washington.
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