Program was introduced by Joe Dobson.

John Chere is a retired Foreign Service Institute employee. He has a BA in Political Science from Yale University. Served in the U.S.Army during the Korean conflict as an artillery 2nd Lieutenant. He was commissioned as a Foreign Service officer and his first foreign assignment was to Saigon in 1957-59 where he reported on political and economic developments. Subsequent assignments took him to Tehran (1963-68), Ankara (1970-73) Tehran again (1973-76) and Rabat (1976-78).He then served on lateral assignment to the International Trade Administration (1978-82) and the Foreign Service Institute in D.C prior to his retirement in 1984. Some highlights of his talk included these facts..in this current administration there has been a 31% cut in programs and we have lost 60% of our career ambassadors. There are usually 300 Career applications per year approved for training ,next year the number is 100. John used the quote “soft power vs military power” to highlight the potential problem with this approach.

He made sure we understood this was his observations from outside of the government based on his long career. A good amount of questions ensued. Thanks for the program Joe.

Raffle fruit basket won by Steve Young.