The Foreign Service Youth
Foundation is governed by a Board of Directors. By mandate,
at least two-thirds of the members of the Board have worked
for or been associated with U.S. diplomatic missions abroad.
To the extent possible, the Board has a balanced
representation of different groups, organizations and
governmental offices concerned with issues relating to
Foreign Service youth. At least one member of the Board is a
young adult who grew up in the Foreign Service. All members
of the Board are volunteers who serve two-year terms and do
not receive compensation from FSYF.
How to Join the Board
Any employee or family member who has served under chief of
mission authority and/or has a connection to the Foreign
Affairs community by employment, marriage or upbringing is
eligible to be nominated for the Board of Directors. Ideal
candidates are committed to the mission of FSYF and to
Foreign Service families and young people, are able to work
collaboratively as members of a team, and have adequate time
to contribute to FYSF. First priority shall be given to
individuals representing groups that directly or indirectly
deal with Foreign Service youth issues as well as
organizations or offices not currently represented on the
Board.
To read the job description, click
here.
To complete a nomination form, click
here.
Linda Garvelink,
President
Linda Garvelink is a
member of the Board, holds BBA and MBA degrees in finance
from George Washington University in Washington, DC, and is
a banking industry specialist with more than 30 years of
management, finance, and marketing experience. As a USAID
PSC, she led mutual savings bank capacity building projects
in Bolivia where she advised the Bolivian Savings and Loan
system on financial planning, savings mobilization,
marketing, portfolio diversification, personnel management,
computerization and small/micro business lending. She
managed project use of PL 480 local currency designated for
small loan programs. In the private sector, she worked for
Grant Thornton LLP, NACHA-The Electronic Payments
Association, The Independent Community Bankers of America,
and State Department Federal Credit Union. She advised
clients and members regarding financial services industry
regulation, strategic and operations issues, work-process
improvement, and product development, bank charter
requirements, eCommerce, electronic business reporting,
electronic payments, and trends in community banking. She
has specialized in eBanking, EDI, electronic bill
presentment, electronic bill payment, and other payments
system issues. From 2007 – 2010 she served as the spouse of
the U.S. Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo. She
is an active volunteer
Kristin Grasso, Vice President
Kristin is a TCK (third-culture kid)
whose father served as a Foreign Service Officer for the
Department of State. Kristin grew up in the Dominican
Republic, Colombia, Russia and Mexico. She is the mother of
three daughters—one attending the University of Virginia and
two in high school. Kristin graduated from the University of
Virginia with a degree in Foreign Affairs (and quite often
finds herself wishing she majored in child psychology). She
has been a stay-at-home mother and currently works at the
Department of State in the Office of Overseas Schools.
Tim Sears,
Treasurer
A twenty-eight year veteran of the Foreign Service, Tim is
married and the father of three school-aged children. He has
served in Islamabad, Lome, Belize, Asuncion and La Paz as
well as Washington. Tim is currently
a
Financial Management Officer in the Bureau of
International narcotics and law Enforcement Affairs.
Xenia Wilkinson, Chair Nominating Committee
Xenia Wilkinson is a retired Foreign
Service officer. She served in Mexico, Honduras, Brazil, and
the U.S. Missions to the United Nations and the Organization
of American States. Her daughter Julia, and stepchildren T,
Rebecca, and Jennifer grew up in the foreign service. Xenia
earned a PhD. In Latin American history at Georgetown
Unviersity in 2010. She has taught
history at Georgetown University and the University of Mary
Washington.
Xenia is married to Ted
Wilkinson, also a retired FSO, who served as AFSA president
(1989-1991) and has remained active in the organization.
Nadia Tongour, Chair Events
Committee
After a 27-year career as an FSO, Nadia retired last year to
pursue some of her other and earlier interests—in education
and travel – both teaching part-time and taking courses in
the field of "travel and tourism.” Her Foreign Service tours
were divided between overseas assignments in Latin American
and the Caribbean (notably Brazil, Mexico, Barbados and
Grenada) and Washington postings that focused on the former
Soviet Union and Europe. She has one son, who accompanied her on many of her tours.
Dale Dean, Chair Scholarship
Committee
Dale Dean was a political officer and Arabist who served the
first half of his Foreign Service career in the Arab World
(Cairo, Kuwait, Jeddah and Riyadh) and was later the West
Bank/Gaza desk officer in the Office of Israel Affairs.
Other assignments were in the Africa Bureau (East African
Affairs--Somalia Desk), in the PM Bureau as Deputy Director
of the Office of International Security Operations, and
later in EUR as Deputy Director for Strategy and Security,
Office of European Security and Political Affairs. His last
oversees post was in the Political Section of Embassy
Ankara. After retirement in 1999, Dale earned a Master of
Arts in Arab Studies from Georgetown University.
Dale was married to the late Michael Ann Hughes Dean, who
had been an FSYF Board member, the CLO in Riyadh and Ankara,
and the Publications Coordinator for the Family Liaison
Office. Their children, Cat and Phil, spent much of their
childhood in the Arab World. Cat served for a time as a
youth representative on the FSYF Board.
Blanca Ruebensaal
Blanca raised her three children overseas during her
husband's 28-yr career in the Foreign Service.
She has lived in Thailand, Switzerland, Israel and Bermuda
as well as Brazil and Uruguay. While posted abroad,
Blanca volunteered her time working almost exclusively with
youth projects and education, first with the Pearl S. Buck
Foundation in Udorn Thailand and later as the founder of an
international preschool in Tel Aviv, Israel. After
returning to the United States, Blanca joined Public
Diplomacy efforts focused on youth programs, administered by
the Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural
Affairs. From 2006-2009, Blanca served as the
President of the Foreign Service Youth Foundation.
Blanca was married to the late Clayton F. Ruebensaal, Jr,
(FSO, retired) and is the mother of three children.
She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in international
economics from Georgetown University, School of Foreign
Service.
Shirley McGee
Shirley J. McGee is a Human
Resources Specialist and Consular Associate with broad-based
international experience. She has extensive expertise
in writing job descriptions and in negotiating
classification standards. Her performance earned her
two Department of State Superior Honor Awards and several
Meritorious Honor Awards.
Shirley is a graduate of Indiana
University with a BA in physical education. She taught
and coached in East Chicago, Indiana, and in several
American International Overseas schools over the past 30
years. She was the Ambassador’s representative on the
American School of Madagascar’s school board and tutored
students in math. Shirley lived in 11 foreign
countries holding a variety of increasingly complex
government positions. She coordinated and developed
community outreach programs in support of US Government
policy in four African postings.
Shirley volunteered her services
successfully to raise funds in support of Pediatric Aids and
Komen for the Cure. She worked with local charity
organizations in Swaziland and Zimbabwe to provide
scholarships for aids orphans. Shirley is married to
Ambassador James D. McGee (Ret) and lives in Bradenton,
Florida.
Jim McGrath
Jim was a Foreign Service Youth
as he and his family accompanied his father, a Foreign
Service Officer now retired from the Central Intelligence
Agency, on many tours overseas. Jim, and his brother
Tim, own and operate McGrath Real Estate Services in
Northern Virginia. The McGrath’s understand the unique
challenges associated with owning and managing real estate
while balancing work that requires international travel.
They started their company to assist others with the
process. Since 1985 Jim has been the Principal Broker
and President of McGrath Real Estate Service, Inc. He is a
member of Northern Virginia Association of Realtors
(“NVAR”), a Lifetime Member NVAR Top Producer Club, a
Lifetime Member NVAR Multi-Million Dollar Sales Club.
Jim is a past Chairman of the Property Management and
Leasing Committee at NVAR, a past Delegate to the Virginia
Association of Realtors as well as a member of the National
Association of Property Managers (NARPM). Jim has a
BS in Business Administration from George Mason University.
Jim is also a recent Board of Director of the Southwestern
Youth Association Little League Baseball Board and remains
active in youth sports through coaching and is a member of
the Positive Coaches Alliance. McGrath Real Estate Services
is proud to Sponsor the FSYF Essay Contest.
Erik Sundquist
A
child of Arlington and graduate of Washington-Lee, Erik
studied German literature at Harvard,
completed a Ph.D. in English and comparative literature at Columbia,
and taught English at colleges in New
York,
Saudi Arabia,
Morocco and the DC area
before and after becoming a Foreign Service spouse
and accompanying his wife, Alix, during her 20-year
career and four overseas postings. Besides
teaching, Erik was active in commissary and employee
associations abroad and in the wine business at home. Now
in the 12 years since his wife's retirement, he
has struggled to achieve a balance between duty,
as full-time associate broker with Peake Management, and far
too many passions--European languages, opera, classical and
renaissance literature, Arabic, wine, and French cooking.
Erik and Alix have one daughter, Karin Alexandra, born in Paris in
1984 and enriched by sojourns in Bordeaux and Rabat.
Alexandra Lena Pomeroy
Alexandra is a program officer in the
Office of Europe and Asia Programs in the Department of
State's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement Affairs (INL). She is a former TCK,
FSYF participant, and the daughter of a retired Foreign
Agricultural Officer. Alexandra was born in London.
She has attended international schools in Tunis, Lagos, New
Delhi, and Cairo. She has a B.A. in International
Relations from the College of William and Mary and is a
Public Policy Masters candidate at Georgetown University.
She also attended the Institut Politque d'Etudes in Lyon
from 2006-2007.
Stuart Symington
Born in St. Joseph, Missouri,
Stuart grew up as the son of a Foreign Service Officer in
Honduras, Spain, Mexico, Ecuador, and Niger, West Africa.
In college, Stuart studied abroad at Kyoto University in
Kyoto, Japan and worked at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, Japan.
He was also awarded grants to increase access to markets
for women's cooperatives and build wells in rural Djibouti.
Stuart was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received a BA in
East Asian Studies, magna cum laude, from Yale University.
He worked for the Rwandan Government's Development Board to
market investment opportunities in Kigali, Rwanda while
conducting research on the post-genocide legal system. He
was an active member of the FSYF in high school and a
recipient of the FSYF Award from former Secretary Colin
Powell for his work in Niger. Currently, he runs online
marketing and revenue strategy for SpanishDict.com,
a company that teaches over 50 million annual visitors
Spanish and English online for free.
Anne Kolker
The daughter of a Foreign Service officer and a
Swedish politician, Anne was born in Stockholm, Sweden, and
grew up in England, Botswana, Falls Church, Denmark, Burkina
Faso, and Uganda. She is a recipient (with her sister, Eva)
of a 2002 FSYF Community Service Award for her work with an
orphanage and summer camp in Ouagadougou. After graduating
from Swarthmore College with a joint degree in Political
Science and Theater, Anne worked in Progressive politics in
DC before succumbing to the call of the family business and
joined the State Department as a Foreign Affairs Officer.
She currently works in the climate change office in the OES
bureau, focusing on the UN climate negotiations.
Gretchen Krantz Evans
Gretchen is an attorney, a TCK
and the mother of two TCKs. Gretchen holds degrees in German
and International Studies from West Virginia University, a
J.D. from Columbia Law School and a linguist’s certificate
from the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA.
Although she has never lived anywhere for more than 4 years
in her life, she considers West Virginia home.
Prior to attending law school,
Gretchen was a German language instructor for U.S. Army
soldiers in Schweinfurt, Germany and the Director of the
Schweinfurt USO. She also worked at the John F.
Kennedy Special Warfare Center – Foreign Language School in
Ft. Bragg, NC as the faculty coordinator.
Following graduation from law
school, Gretchen clerked for the Hon.
Joseph R. Goodwin, SDWV. She was an associate in the
corporate department of Davis Polk & Wardwell for seven
years and worked in the firm’s New York, Frankfurt and Hong
Kong offices. Her most recent overseas posting was in
Ghana, where she worked at the U.S. Embassy for the Bureau
of Population, Refugees & Migration as the Assistant Refugee
Coordinator, and for the Foreign Commercial Office as a
trade specialist, focusing on intellectual property issues.
Gretchen also served on the Embassy Accra AEA Board, the
Board of Governors for the German Swiss International School
– Accra, and co-founded Karma Yoga Accra, a non-profit
organization which supported women’s’ and children’s
charities.
Gretchen is married to Michael, a
Foreign Service Officer. Gretchen and Michael are the
parents of two young boys, one born in Frankfurt and the
other during a medevac from Ghana.
Marie Gengler O'Connor
Alison Bauerlein
Alison is a third generation Foreign Service Officer whose father and grandfather worked for USIA. Now a public diplomacy officer herself, Alison has served overseas in Afghanistan and Pakistan and currently works in the Department's bureau of Public Affairs. Alison has a BA from the University of Virginia, an MA in Global Communication from George Washington University, and an MBA from the University of Oxford. She lived in Poland, New Zealand, Austria and Bolivia during her childhood.
Dr. Robert Beck
Director of Student Psychological Services
Mette Beecroft
President Emerita of AAFSW
Ambassador Ruth Davis
Retired Foreign Service, Former
FSYF Board
Kay Branaman Eakin
President Emerita
Rebecca Grappo
Founder of RNG International Educational Consultants, Former
FLO Education and Youth Officer
Ambassador John Lange
Retired Foreign Service, Former FSYF Board
Director of Foreign Service Institute Transition Center
Dr. Keith Miller
Director of Dept. of State Office of Overseas Schools
John Naland
Former President of AFSA
Lieutenant Alison Rose-Wood, USPHS
Senior International Health Analyst, Former Foreign Service Youth
Leslie Teixiera
Director of Dept. of State Family Liaison Office (FLO)
Congressman Chris Van Hollen
Former Foreign Service Youth
