Speakers

Marc Grossman

William Joseph Burns

David Welch

Ronald L. Schlicher

Gordon Gray

Gary Pergl

Michael Corbin

Douglas J. Rosenstein

Donna Stoffer

Pat Keegan

Claudia Romeo

Jacalyn Stein

Theresa Tierney

David Galbraith

Tiffany Murphy

Laila D. Shaker

Hady Sobeih

BIOGRAPHY

Marc Grossman

Under Secretary, Political Affairs

Marc Grossman was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 23, 2001 and sworn in as Under Secretary for Political Affairs on March 26, 2001.

Ambassador Grossman has been a career Foreign Service Officer since 1976. He was Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources, from June 2000 to February 2001, and Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, from August 1997 to May 2000. From November 1994 to June 1997, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Turkey. Prior to this, from January 1993 to September 1994, he was Special Assistant to the Secretary of State and Executive Secretary of the Department of State.

Before assuming these duties, Ambassador Grossman served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Political Military Affairs. He was Executive Assistant to Deputy Secretary of State John C. Whitehead, from September 1986 to January 1989.
From 1984 to 1986, Ambassador Grossman was the Deputy Director of the Private Office of Lord Carrington, then Secretary General of NATO.

Other overseas assignments include tours as a political officer at the U.S Mission to NATO and in Islamabad. In Washington, DC he also has served as Deputy Special Adviser to President Carter and in several capacities for the Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs.

Ambassador Grossman earned a B.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara and an MSc. in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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BIOGRAPHY

William Joseph Burns

Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs

William Joseph Burns was confirmed by the Senate as Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs on May 25, 2001 and was sworn in on June 7, 2001. Assistant Secretary Burns, of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, with the rank of Career Minister. Since entering the Foreign Service in 1982, Assistant Secretary Burns has served in a number of posts in Washington and overseas. These include Political Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Amman, Jordan; staff positions in the Bureau of Near East Affairs and the Office of the Deputy Secretary of State; Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs at the National Security Council Staff; Acting Director and Principal Deputy Director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff; Minister-Counselor for Political Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow; Executive Secretary of the State Department and Special Assistant to the Secretary of State; and Ambassador to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Assistant Secretary Burns earned a B.A. in History from LaSalle University and M.Phil. and D.Phil. degrees in International Relations from Oxford University, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar. He was also awarded an honorary doctor of Laws degree by LaSalle University in 1997. Assistant Secretary Burns is the author of Economic Aid and American Policy Toward Egypt, 1955-1981 (State University of New York Press, 1985). He speaks Arabic, Russian, and French, and is the recipient of the Presidential Distinguished Service Award and a number of Department of State awards, including the Distinguished Honor Award, the James Clement Dunn Award, and five Superior Honor Awards.

Assistant Secretary Burns is married and has two daughters.

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BIOGRAPHY

David Welch

Ambassador of the United States Cairo, Arab Republic of Egypt

Picture of Maura Harty

David Welch is the Ambassador of the United States to the Arab Republic of Egypt. President Bush announced his intention to nominate David Welch as Ambassador in April, 2001; he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in July, 2001 and sworn in by Secretary of State Colin Powell in August, 2001.

A career diplomat, Ambassador Welch has lengthy experience in senior foreign policy positions. From October 1998 until July 2001, Ambassador Welch worked as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, responsible for U.S. policy in the United Nations and other international organizations. From March 1995 to October 1998, Ambassador Welch was the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. He served for two years (1992-94) as Chargé d'Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. From 1994-95, he was the Deputy Chief of Mission in Riyadh. Prior to his assignment to Saudi Arabia, Ambassador Welch was Executive Assistant to the Under Secretary for Political Affairs at the Department of State (1991-1992). Ambassador Welch was a member of the National Security Council staff at the White House from 1989-1991, under then-President Bush.
During the 1980s, Ambassador Welch worked in key positions in Middle East affairs. Ambassador Welch was Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Amman, Jordan from 1986-1988, and Chief of the Political Section at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, Syria from 1984-1986. Prior to these assignments, Ambassador Welch served as the officer responsible for Syria (1981-1982) and Lebanon (1982-1983) in the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs. He also served in Islamabad, Pakistan (1979-81).

Ambassador Welch earned a Master's degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in 1977. In 1975 he graduated with honors (Phi Beta Kappa) from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He also studied at the London School of Economics from 1973-1974.
Ambassador Welch has received several awards from the State Department for exceptional service. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Foreign Service Association.

Ambassador Welch was born in Munich, Germany in 1953. He is married to Gretchen Gerwe Welch, also a Foreign Service Officer. They have three daughters: Emma, born in 1988 in Jordan; Molly, born in 1991 in Washington; and Hannah, born in 1993 in Saudi Arabia.

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BIOGRAPHY

Ronald L. Schlicher

DAS Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs

Deputy Assistant Secretary Ronald Schlicher is currently serving as Coordinator for Iraq in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. As such, he is the State Department official in charge of the several offices in the Near East Bureau, which deal with Iraqi issues, and is the principal point of contact through which all United States Government agencies deal with Iraq.

Schlicher is a Minister-Counselor in the Senior Foreign Service. He entered the Foreign Service in January 1982. He was Vice-Consul in Dhahran from September 1982 to March 1984. From 1984-1986, he served as Consul in Damascus, Syria. He then returned to the Department as Staff Assistant in NEA to Assistant Secretary Richard Murphy. From 1987-1989, he served as Deputy Principal Officer in Alexandria, Egypt. He then transferred to the Embassy in Cairo, where he served as First Secretary from 1989-1991, specializing in internal Egyptian politics and Islamic movements. In 1991-1992, he was Chief Civilian Observer in the MFO, the organization that monitors the security provisions of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. Returning to the Department, he served from 1992-1994 as a Deputy Director for Regional Affairs in the Office of the Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism (S/CT). From 1994-1997, Schlicher served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Beirut, Lebanon. From 1997-2000, Schlicher was the Director of the Office of Egyptian and North African Affairs in NEA. From 2000-2002, he served as Chief of Mission and Consul-General in Jerusalem. During the 2003 war with Iraq, Schlicher was Director of the Iraq Task Force. He then served for six months in Iraq with CPA, first as Regional Coordinator for the North and then as Director of the Office of Provincial Outreach.

Schlicher is fluent in Arabic (several dialects) and French. Over his career, he was received the Distinguished Honor Award, three Superior Honor Awards, two Meritorious Honor Awards, a National Humint Collector Award, and, most recently, the Christian A. Herter Award. He has also been awarded Senior and Presidential Performance Pay on several occasions.

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BIOGRAPHY

Gordon Gray

Deputy Chief of Mission
United States Embassy, Cairo

Gordon Gray is the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. He arrived in Egypt on July 1, 2002. He previously served as the Director of the State Department’s Office of Arabian Peninsula Affairs. Mr. Gray was the Director of the Office of Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Operations from 1999 until 2001, and the Director of the Regional Affairs Office for the Coordinator for Counterterrorism from 1996 to 1999.

Mr. Gray began his career in government as a Peace Corps volunteer in Oued Zem, Morocco, where he taught English at a local high school. After joining the Foreign Service in 1982, he served in Karachi, Pakistan, and Amman, Jordan. Upon his return to Washington in 1987, Mr. Gray was assigned to the Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, first as staff assistant and then as the desk officer for Kuwait and the political-military affairs officer for Saudi Arabia. He also served on the Soviet desk (1990-92) and as a political officer in Ottawa, Canada (1992-96).

Mr. Gray received his B.A. from Yale and his M.A. from Columbia. He is a member of the American Foreign Service Association, the Middle East Institute, and the D.C. Road Runners Club. Mr. Gray has received several Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards from the State Department.

Mr. Gray is married and has two sons and a daughter. In addition to spending time with his family, he enjoys chess and running.

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BIOGRAPHY

Gary Pergl

Director
Office of Career Development and Assignments
(HR/CDA)

Gary Pergl is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, rank of Minister Counselor. He joined the Foreign Service in 1979, and is currently the Director of the Office of Career Development and Assignments. His last overseas assignment was Deputy Chief of Mission in Accra, Ghana, and he has also served tours of duty in Moscow, Manila, Tunis, Johannesburg, and Paris. His Washington assignments have been Director of Foreign Service Assignments for the U.S. Information Agency, and Director of Public Diplomacy Training at the Foreign Service Institute. He is a graduate of the 44th Senior Seminar.

Mr. Pergl received B.A. degrees in journalism and Russian from San Jose State University, and an M.A. degree in Soviet Studies from the University of Southern California. His languages are Russian and French. He is married to Mary Catherine Beasley, and has five children.

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BIOGRAPHY

Michael Corbin

Minister Counselor for Economic and Political Affairs

Michael Corbin has served as the Minister Counselor for Economic and Political Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo since August 2003. He previously served as the Deputy Director of the State Department’s Office of Arabian Peninsula Affairs from 2001 to 2003. Mr. Corbin was the Director of the Counter-Narcotics Section at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela from 1997 to 2001. He served previously at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo from 1994-1997 as the Political-Military Affairs officer and at the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait from 1987-89. His first tour after joining the State Department was at the U.S. Embassy in Tunis, Tunisia from 1985-87.

Mr. Corbin also served in the State Department in Washington as a staff assistant in the Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs and in the office of United Nations Political Affairs in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs.

After graduating with a B.A. from Swarthmore College, Mr. Corbin served from 1982-1984 as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mauritania. Mr. Corbin has received several Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards from the State Department. He speaks French, Spanish, and Arabic.

Mr. Corbin is married to another Foreign Service Officer and has two children.

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BIOGRAPHY

Douglas J. Rosenstein

Special Agent/Security Officer
Department of State Diplomatic Service

Personal

Born: 3 August, 1951, New York City
Married with two children

Education/Training

New York City school system until the age of 18

1973: Graduate University of New Haven
Bachelor of Science Degree, Criminal Justice

1974: State of Connecticut Criminal Justice Academy

1977: Diplomatic Security Service (DS) Basic Agent Training

1984: DS Regional Security Officer Training

1989: Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, Glynco, Georgia, Criminal Investigator Training Course

Numerous other tactical, leadership and administrative training courses

Special Agent - U.S. Department of State
Diplomatic Security Service Professional Experience

1977 – 1980: New York Field Office
1980 – 1982: Secretary of State Protective Detail
1982 – 1984: Watch Officer – DS Command Center
1984 – 1986: Assistant Regional Security Officer – Ankara, Turkey
1986 – 1988: Regional Security Officer – Abu Dhabi, UAE
1988 – 1992: Special Agent in Charge – DS Los Angeles Field Office
1992 – 1995: Regional Security Officer – Ankara, Turkey
1995 – 1998: Regional Security Officer – Brussels, Belgium
1998 – 2001: Regional Director – Middle East/South Asia Regions
2001 – 2002: Special Advisor – Office, Coordinator for Counter Terrorism
2002 – 2003: Deputy Director for Investigations and Counter-Intelligence
2003 – 2005: Current assignment - Regional Security Officer, Cairo, Egypt.

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BIOGRAPHY

Donna Stoffer

Director
Office Management Training Division

Donna brings 37 years of training and education background experience to FSI/SPAS. This has included teaching at the high school and college levels and serving as an instructional systems specialist for the Department of Defense and the Department of Treasury. She has been responsible for the development and implementation of training programs for Government civilian and military personnel in a wide variety of occupations.

Her zeal for training is rooted in her belief that training must deliver skills and knowledges that will enable employees to learn, apply and ultimately improve job performance. Donna says, “Training must be ‘reality based’, if it does not relate to required job performance, we are not meeting performance improvement and career development needs.”

Donna’s favorite pastimes are spending time with her grandchildren, reading and Scrabble.

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BIOGRAPHY

Pat Keegan

Front Office
Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs

Pat Keegan took her first plane ride when she was six weeks old as part of a family relocation. From that time on, travel was her first love and moving became second nature.

Though born in Chicago, Pat was raised in the Pacific Northwest. After completing her formal education in Seattle, Pat began her government career as a Civil Service Clerk-Stenographer at the U.S. Department of Labor. Following several years there, she transferred to the U.S. Department of State in Washington, DC, where she became a Foreign Service Secretary as part of the bicentennial class of July 1976.

Since then, she has lived in 11 countries and toured more than 60 others. Pat has served in every geographic bureau and has had assignments in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres as well as right on the equator. She has packed and unpacked her HHE more than a dozen times in the past three decades and at one point noted that her POV had more sea than land miles on it.

She has worked for seven Ambassadors and two Assistant Secretaries. Her overseas postings ranged from flagship to hardship and included SEP posts as well as missions comprised of thousands of individuals. Her overseas assignments in chronological order were in: Iceland, Switzerland, Japan, Somalia, Mauritius, Peru, England, India, Ghana, Venezuela and Kuwait. In Washington, she has worked in the front offices of the Bureaus of East Asian and Pacific Affairs and Western Hemisphere Affairs and is currently assigned to the front office of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.

In her off duty hours, Pat enjoys reading, swimming, theater and the arts.

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BIOGRAPHY

Claudia Romeo

OMS Coordinator

Claudia Romeo has been the OMS Coordinator since August, 2003. Claudia is a military "brat," and grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia; Norfolk, Virginia; and Naples, Italy. She joined the Foreign Service in 1977 and her first assignment was as the DCM's secretary in Lusaka, Zambia. Her previous assignments are: Hong Kong; Rome; San Salvador; Brussels (NATO); Washington (EUR/EX); Canberra, Brasilia; Rabat; and Madrid. One of her proudest achievements is winning AAFSW's NEA Volunteerism Abroad award in 2000. Claudia is married to Nicodemo (Nick) Romeo, a Foreign Service IM employee; they have four children: Francesco (19), Mark (15), Catherine (13), and Nicholas (10). Claudia's brother, Paul Davenport, and sister-in-law Joanne Davenport, are both in the Foreign Service and are posted in Cairo.

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BIOGRAPHY

Jacalyn Stein

Office Management Training Division

Jacalyn Stein joined the Foreign Service in 1974 as a Foreign Service Secretary. She spent her first three tours of duty overseas, serving in Abidjan, Stockholm and Jakarta. After completing a Washington assignment, Jackie returned overseas as the Rome-based EUR roving OMS. From 1993-1997, Jackie was detailed to the Agency for International Development where she worked as the executive assistant to the Administrator. Her most recent overseas assignments were in the Middle East, Cairo and Tel Aviv, where she worked as the Ambassador’s OMS.
Jackie currently is assigned to the School of Professional and Area Studies at FSI. She works in the Office Management Training Division as an instructor where she is responsible for the FSN/LES training portfolio.

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BIOGRAPHY

Theresa Tierney

Office Management Practice Expert
Office of eDiplomacy

Theresa Tierney is currently working as an Office Management Practice Expert in the Office of eDiplomacy. This position is new and primarily involves revamping the OMS website as well as studying how Information Technology impacts the end user. Previously, Theresa served as a Personal Assistant for the Undersecretary for Political Affairs; as a Line Assistant advancing travel for Secretary Powell; a Senior Secretary on detail at the National Security Council's office for Multilateral Affairs; and overseas at our Missions in Pretoria, South Africa and Hanoi, Vietnam.

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BIOGRAPHY

David Galbraith

David Galbraith is a Junior Officer generalist currently serving as Staff Assistant to Ambassador Welch in Embassy Cairo’s Front Office, where he is responsible for tracking the flow of paper through the Front Office and communicating with other Embassy sections. Mr. Galbraith served as vice-consul and Chief of the Immigrant Visa Unit during his first year in Embassy Cairo. His onward assignment is as an Economic and Political Officer in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

Before joining the Foreign Service, Mr. Galbraith worked in the private sector on projects relating to the environment and public health. He also earned a Masters of Public Administration in International Development from the Kennedy School of Government. Mr. Galbraith was born in Washington, DC, and is currently domiciled in California. He is engaged to Alyce Abdalla, also a Foreign Service Officer.

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BIOGRAPHY

Tiffany Murphy

Tiffany Murphy is a second tour Foreign Service Officer currently serving in the Economic-Political Section. Her portfolio covers reporting on energy, tourism, and labor in Egypt. Ms. Murphy served as Chief of the Non-Immigrant Unit during her first year in Embassy Cairo. She also served as the Fraud Prevention Manager and as a Vice-consul in the Consular Section in Guadalajara, Mexico during her first tour. Her onward assignment is as the Consular Officer in Milan, Italy.

Before joining the Foreign Service, Ms. Murphy practiced computer law for Electronic Evidence Discovery, Inc. where she advised litigants and corporations on a wide range of electronic discovery issues. Ms. Murphy was born in Redwood City, California and is currently domiciled in Bellevue, Washington.

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BIOGRAPHY

Laila D. Shaker

Political Specialist

Laila D. Shaker joined the U.S. Embassy in August of 1985 as a translator for the Post Research Library (PRL) and later as a Political Assistant. In 1994 she became the Deputy Director and later the Director of the combined Political Unit, which is the result of the merge between the Post Research Library and the Press Analysis Unit. In 1996 with the merge of the Political and Economic Sections, she was chosen as the Chief of the Political Unit and a Political Specialist. Mrs. Shaker manages a staff of two Political specialists and two Political Assistants who cover the entire gamut of political life in Egypt as well as Egypt’s relations with the outside world.

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BIOGRAPHY

Hady Sobeih

Political Specialist

Hady Sobeih joined the Embassy as a Political Specialist in November of 1989. In 1996 with the merge between the Political and Economic Section, he was chosen as the Deputy to the Chief of the Political Unit. Mr. Sobeih covers internal issues.

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