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Hunter,


I vaguely recall your telling me last time we got together that you had
done some work related to food security agriculture or at least were
interested in the position in Rome. Maybe you told me that you were on
some board or something. I forgot. The conversation was long ago. I
just got off the phone with my former boss Paul Weisenfeld who's now the
head of USAID's Food Security Bureau in Washington. He's one of the
greatest guys I know. He went to law school with Michelle Obama, but
his position is a career position, not political (he's a career foreign
service officer like me. He's probably one of the USG's very best
Foreign Service Officers - he headed the Haiti Task Team after the
earthquake). If you have any interest in meeting him, don't hesitate to
let me know. I thought of you because he mentioned something about a
friend of his being the U.S. Ambassador to the FAO in Rome, and it
jogged my memory about our old conversation.


I'm still in Peru. I'm getting my bids in tomorrow for new management
positions for summer 2012. There had been an initial push from my
former boss to get me to go to Haiti as the new USAID Mission Director,
but I ultimately decided that I don't think it would be a good fit for
the family to spend two years in Haiti, even though it would have been a
fantastic career move. Frankly, I'm not sure that Cheryl Mills would
have selected me anyway, as I imagine she'll want to identify a
candidate who has experience as a Mission Director at several posts. My
list now includes Vietnam, Mozambique, Ukraine, Uganda, Rwanda, and
Sudan - although I'm thinking about switching out Rwanda for either
Honduras or coming back to Washington to be the head of HR for USAID (a
stretch, but I'm not sure anyone else would want that position). I'm
pretty sure I want to spread my wings and get out of Latin America
already. Vietnam would be awesome. I'm one of the top two candidates,
but I think I'm competing against a former Ambassador.


Tracy and I were just in Washington for a weekend about two weeks ago
with the kids for my dad to get an award from Georgetown Medical Center
(sort of like a Lifetime Achievement Award). He's been at the Medical
Center for more than 40 years now.


Then the whole family headed out West to Grand Canyon and Zion -
incredible. If you haven't done the National Parks with the kids, I
highly recommend it. Living overseas, I always love coming back to the
U.S. and being reminded how magnificent our own country is. It almost
always makes me think about quitting USAID and looking for jobs in the
U.S., but then Tracy invariably talks me out of it. I keep flirting
with the idea of trying to work with the Glover Park Group with my
brother-in-law, but when I leave the government, I'm pretty sure I'll
want to go into business. Who knows what the future has in store?


I trust you and your family are doing well. Let me know if there's
anything interesting going on with you, and if you'd like to meet Paul.
He's a good person to know and a great guy. One of his closest friends
also is Aaron Williams, the head of Peace Corps.


Andy