Town Hall Introduction for Director General of FS
July 21, 2005

It gives me great pleasure to call the entire Mission together for this town hall meeting to  welcome to our Embassy the Director General of the Foreign Service, Ambassador Robert Pearson; Deputy Director of Human Resources Career Development and Assignments Hans Klemm; and Special Assistant, Ray Maxwell.  I hope that everyone here will remain afterwards to enjoy food, drink and festivities out on the patio.

Ambassador Pearson has had an extraordinary  career. Before he was appointed to the position of Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources, he was the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey.  Before that, he served as  DCM to our Embassy in France. He has served twice at NATO during particularly difficult times, as well as at the National Security Council. He has served as a Foreign Service officer in our embassies in  Beijing, China and Auckland, New Zealand, and has been a staff assistant in the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Bureau. Ambassador Pearson’s broad experience in Washington and in several geographic regions of the world makes him well prepared to understand personnel concerns  both from the  field and from Washington.

Ambassador Pearson, I am very proud of this Embassy and of all of our people.  We are delighted to have you here and we look forward to your talk and the questions and answer period.

I introduce to you Ambassador Pearson.