Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivers remarks at the Heroes of U.S. Diplomacy Launch Event, at the Department of State
Transcript
[Announcer] Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Secretary of State of the United States, the Director General Carol Perez, Foreign Service Institute Director Dan Smith, and the Hero of U.S. Diplomacy honoree Elizabeth Slater. (audience applauding)
Good morning everyone. Thank you very much. Secretary Pompeo, Director General Perez, Ambassador Lange, Ambassador Massolini, Charge Guchero, Assistant Secretary Nagy, other assistant secretaries, distinguished guests. I’m delighted to welcome you to today to the launch of the Heroes of U.S. Diplomacy Initiative, recognizing our first honoree, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Slater. (audience applauding) I would especially like to welcome Lizzie, her husband, Charles, and their son, Forbes, to our event today. Lizzie is a first in a series of modern day and historic heroes of U. S. Diplomacy that the Department of State will showcase over the coming year as a means of sharing stories from throughout our rich history. Such heroes have left a mark on the mission of the Department, the conduct of diplomacy and our work to advance the interest of the America people. I’d like to thank the Cox Foundation and recognize Ambassador Lino Gutierrez for their contribution to this initiative, thank you very much. Like Lizzie, who overcame incredible challenges to reestablish communications with Washington for Embassy Dar Es Salaam after the 1998 bombing, the Heroes of Diplomacy are an inspiration for all of us. This recognition is intentionally open to all parts of the Department of State. Heroes may be current or former civil service employees, foreign service generalists or specialists, non-career appointees, eligible family members or locally employed staff. Following an open call for nominations from U.S. missions overseas, as well as domestic bureaus, a Department-wide steering committee chose the heroes for having displayed sound policy judgment and intellectual, moral or physical courage while advancing U.S. foreign policy goals even in the face of adversity. The Office of the Historian is also nominating figures from the past for the historical portion of this initiative. Lizzie’s story and those of others who will follow her will be shared internally and through programming throughout the United States. I hope they will inspire those of you in the audience to nominate your colleagues whose stories deserve to be told. And now it is my honor to welcome the Secretary of State to the podium. (audience applauding)
Good morning everyone. It’s wonderful to be with you all. When I walked in there was a lot of applause. Lizzie, I know exactly who it was for. (audience laughing) I want to start with a story today. The date was August 7th, 1998. Lizzie Slater had just arrived at the U. S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam on the coast of Tanzania for her second day as a foreign service IT specialist. Just three days before that, she said good bye in London to her then five-year-old son, Forbes, and husband, Charlie, who was also a member of our foreign service. On that August day after reporting to work, she went to the Embassy’s Community Liaison Office for a welcome post briefing. You all know them. As she stepped into the room, everything went black. Then she heard screaming. As we now know, a truck bomb with 2000 plus pounds of TNT detonated just 50 feet from where Lizzie was standing. She was instantly thrown back and buried in concrete leaving her with blunt force trauma, bruising from head to toe and significant facial injuries. But none of that stopped her from getting back to work that very same day. As the soon-to-be sole information management specialist at post, she felt she couldn’t let her team down as they set up a temporary facility, temporary embassy near by. Now in most lines of work, the caliber of courage displayed by Lizzie Slater would be one in a million. But I must say, here at the State Department I have found that it is representative. Representative of the fine men and women who show up day in and day out to carry out America’s foreign policy. And today, we have the incredible privilege to recognize Lizzie as the first in a series of our Heroes of Diplomacy whose stories we will share over the coming year. We want to highlight too historic heroes, those whose service is over but whose legacy must live on. America needs to know these stories. And coming from a military background, I’m accustomed to hearing my fellow soldiers referred to as heroes, and rightfully so. But at State Department we’re hesitant often to lay claim to that term. Yet, as I’ve traveled to several dozen posts all around the world it’s become clear that we have to move past that reticence. We have to tell these stories. We have to tell them first to our colleagues here, our team. These heroes show us all what we can achieve by putting our intellectual, moral, physical courage to work in service to America’s mission. They show too how we better fulfill the principles enshrined in our ethos including our foundational documents, the Constitution and protecting American people and serving with unfailing professionalism even in the face of adversity. We too are gonna tell these stories to the American people so that they know. They know the service and sacrifice and honor that comes as a standard for America’s diplomatic champions, even those whose stories they have not heard before. I get this incredible window into your work. I have the privilege every day of seeing our heroes at work. I see the mother working at our headquarters who stays late all week because she knows the assignment will create a safer world for her children. I see our local employed staff do amazing things at foreign posts, one who isn’t an American himself but proudly shows up to serve on behalf of America each day because he knows what our country represents. And I see young people graduating from America’s best institutions who gets a great job, chance to make a whole bunch of money some place in the private sector, but who opts instead for a life of service in the State Department because of what she prizes the most isn’t money, it’s meaning. And knows the importance of the work that we do. (audience applauding) I have to tell you, and you’ve heard me say this before, and I’ll say it many many more times, State Department is filled with these individuals, they are not one off. Our team members have courage and skill and servant hearts. We are one team working on a singular mission for our one future. And while it’s an incredible privilege to be surrounded by these heroes of diplomacy every day, stories like Lizzie’s aren’t exceptional other than in their uniquely wonderful work on behalf of America. In the 21 years since the bombing, she has run towards not away from challenging assignments, from Baghdad to Kabul, most recently in Cairo, Egypt. Her colleagues tell me today they have a hard time getting her to slow down. Looking at her family members, I think they sense that too. They tell me that one year, Lizzie spent Thanksgiving day in Kabul pulling cable with her team in the rain and the cold to get our USID colleagues back on line. She refused to come in for Thanksgiving dinner until they had that connectivity restored. She knew how important that was. And because of that commitment, because of that skill, we’re now entrusting Lizzie with an important new assignment. She will be the Dean of the Foreign Service Institute School of Applied Information Technology. (audience applauding) Lizzie will be working to equip all of the Department’s IT professionals with the same know how and grit that has enabled her to meet our Department’s technology needs in such an exemplary manner. But first, she’s here to kick off our Heroes of Diplomacy Initiative by sharing with us some of the many lessons she’s learned throughout her career. I think you’ll really enjoy the conversation that she and Carol will have. And without further adieu, please join me in welcoming Lizzie Slater and Director General Carol Perez to the stage. (audience applauding)
Well, good morning everyone. And I think it’s just a wonderful opportunity for me to reconnect with Lizzie. Our paths crossed before as it did with her husband, and so it’s really nice to see her again today. This initiative gives us an opportunity to recognize and highlight what our staff does. And as the Secretary noted, whether or not you’re civil service or foreign service or family member or local staff member, we all give so much to this organization to advance the interests of the American people. In my job as the Director General of the Foreign Service, I know that we have to take care of our people. I often say our riches are our people. And so we don’t have money for the most part, and we don’t make anything. And so it’s all about taking care of people and putting people first. I’m really thrilled that Lizzie is here today, and she’s going to walk us through in a little bit more detail about what happened on August 7th of 1998. I think it’s wonderfully important we are doing it this week, we just celebrated 9/11 as well. It is I think a week for reflection. But I’m going to let Lizzie tell her story to us. And Lizzie, why don’t you talk a little bit about this. So as the Secretary said, you were sitting in the CLO office, having your introductory briefing that we all know we have as we come to post, so please.
Thank you so much, Ambassador Perez. I just want to start off with saying, I accept this on behalf of all the heroes that day. There were many. (audience applauding) So, want to step back a little bit earlier in the day. I had been at post for less than 48 hours. And as a typical day in the opening up of a communications center overseas, remember we had the paper traffic in those days? So I went in and, with my colleague, Thena Wells, and we set up and pulled in the traffic, and every communication center has its own little quirks and nuances that you have to do, so we did all of that and then before we got into the really difficult stuff of the communications security and things that I was taking over, I said I need to go submit my travel voucher (audience laughing) I had very important stuff so I could get some money for that, and so I had my travel voucher in my hand and I went to stop by to see the CLO. I had my security briefing the day before and as I went past post one I noticed that the security officer was actually on post one. So I waved hello to John DeCarlo, and stepped into the CLO’s office. And as the Secretary said, I actually had seated myself at that point, and then it just went black. So, I didn’t obviously know what had happened and Cynthia Kimball was the CLO, and all I could hear was her screaming. I just kept saying, are you okay? She just kept screaming. And then after a little while, she stopped screaming. I didn’t know what had happened at that point. But I heard some people come into the room. Well, I think the room, yeah, and some movement there and somebody touched me, touched my shoulder. And I said, don’t touch me, I can’t feel my legs. At that point, I though my legs were gone actually, and it was the RSO, and he said, she’s alive. And a lot of action ensued, and Ambassador Lange was one of my heroes that day. So, going to have a little joke here actually. My dear John letters are a bit different because my heroes were John DeCarlo, John Lange, and John Edenswood, yeah, those are the three people that uncovered me and they were moving all the rubble off of me and all of a sudden we heard, I heard, this loud aarrrrrr, and it was the Gunnery Sergeant Kimble, he came in and he sort of hit a bookcase, or whatever it was right on top of me, and I popped up like a cork. Yes, and they kind of marshaled me out of the room. We started going down the stairs, there was an American citizen there that had just finished the John Livingston walk, correct Ambassador Lange? And so he came down the stairs with me, and we found one of our local staff sitting in the stairwell. I didn’t know who it was but I said to her, we’ve got to move, it’s dangerous here, we’ve got to get you out. And she said, I can’t find my shoes. So I took off my shoes and I said, let’s go. So we got outside and actually came out the front of the building, there was a big tanker truck on fire and nothing, it was just devastated. That’s right where the bomb had gone off, and we sort of went around, I knew we had to get away from that, so we started moving around the building, and unfortunately we came across a gentleman that was very badly hurt. He looked to me like he’d been sort of skinned alive actually. I knew I couldn’t help him, so I tried to keep our little merry band moving around the corner, and at that point I could see people coming out the back of the building. And I went up to them and said are you all right, is everybody all right? And that’s when I realized that maybe I wasn’t all right. The person that was looking at me, she kind of went aaahhh and starting backing up and going, oh, oh no, and turned around and I thought, I think I must have said to somebody, is this okay? And that’s when I realized I actually had a lot of facial injury. My nose had been ripped off, so we just keep moving on. Ladders materialized and we climbed over the back fence and there was so many people already on the other side of the wall that were there to assist, the Tanzanians were there with buses, and people just came to assist us, and one, a reporter was also there, and he trained his camera on me going oh, this is a good picture here. And I was still holding my travel voucher.
[DG Perez] Oh jeez. (audience laughing)
That was my money. So I held up the travel voucher in front of my face and I said, please, I just don’t want my son to see this. And so he did get my picture, I do believe actually Forbes did see that. He told us years later. But the good news is my sister saw it and again, she’s alive.
[DG Perez] Which is important.
Yeah.
So, you go through this incredible explosion. Obviously you are not aware of your own injuries, which I assume the adrenaline, everything kicks in, but in that immediate aftermath, did you have other thoughts about now what, or what happens? Where were you mentally at that point?
So my immediate concern was where is Bella? This is my communication, IT colleague.
[DG Perez] Right.
And I was just scrambling, where is Bella. And she, we were asked to get on these buses to be moved to the ultimate command center, Ambassador Lange’s residence. And as I got in the bus, I noticed Bella getting in so I was like, okay, she’s good. So we went off to Ambassador Lange’s residence.
[DG Perez] Which I assume you’d never been to before.
I had not.
[DG Perez] So had no idea how it function, what it was supposed to even operate like.
That’s right. But, one of the first things that I thought about is does Washington know. So I went off the try to find out if we had called Washington, and Ambassador Lange had, he’d already set up in his little home office a direct line to Washington so Op Center was on the line. And then somebody said to me, you need some medical help, so they pulled me back in, and it was the Peace Corps nurse that sat me down and she looked at my face and she said, you know, I think we need to irrigate that. And so, she did what she did, and moved on to the next person. They were doing a triage to see who needed care right away. I believe the French Embassy doctor had already arrived at that point, and he was busily stitching up everybody and another nurse came and looked at me and said, we need to irrigate that. (audience laughing) And so, I did actually at that time say, I can see it now, headline, bomb victim drowns. (audience laughing) Anyway, so eventually I did get to see the French Embassy doctor, which unfortunately I can’t remember his name, he was really a wonderful young man. And he started pulling out a lot of glass out of me, that was the thing, and actually for many many many months later I kept pulling glass out of me. I remember one time, my neck, and I was like, what is this, what is this? And I pulled out this piece of glass, it seemed like a couple of inches long.
Wow.
And I’m’ look and going, how did that not poke holes everywhere. Anyway, so the main thing was what to do with my face and I just remember him saying, close your eyes. He said, I promise you you’ll still be beautiful.
[DG Perez] And I would say she is, right? (audience applauding)
So that was my medical thing. Immediately after that, of course, somebody decided I needed a shower. You know what’s coming, Ambassador Lange, and I did not have any clothes there. So Alejandra said, she was a little shorter than me, and she said, I think I’m going to have to give you some of John’s clothes. (audience laughing) So I ended up in a pair of his britches. And a t-shirt and so I did pass some snarky comment I think at that time thinking I was hoping that later in my career I would be able to fill your shoes. (audience laughing) Yeah.
[DG Perez] The next day, so things are the new normal now, what was that like for you?
So, almost immediately after they finished working on me actually, Bella and I started trying to set up emergency communications at the residence. But the next day, actually I don’t think we’d even slept, I’m pretty sure I didn’t sleep for several days, we went over, at some point it had been decided that we were going to be taking over Dudley Soames’ residence, the Public Affair’s officer. And Bella and I went to have a look at it and figure out what we were going to do. The Regional Information, Information Management Center, REIMC, I always called it REIMC, I couldn’t remember what it stood for, had a team already on the way, so we, excuse me, we went over to have a look to see the telephones that needed to be put in, and the computers, and get up the satellite dish so that we could get the cable traffic working and our connection with Washington. So the team arrived I think the next day, so we immediately went into installation mode to try to get everything set up. Bella was working with the local telephone company to make sure that they brought miles and miles of cable from the local, closest local exchange to the residence so that we could have our normal telephone numbers again. And I believe on Monday morning, I think we had phones on the tables, computers on the desk, and people could get to work.
[DG Perez] Was there anything left of the Embassy at all? Any of your communications network left there at all?
So the network, it was down, of course off, and no power and all that stuff. And we did go back into the Embassy several times to retrieve equipment and things, and I was actually reminded by a colleague in a note this week that he remembers me coming in, a trouble ticket. He said, my keyboard’s not working very well. So I went down to his office and turned it over and shook it, and all this glass fell out, and I said, try it now. (audience laughing) (audience applauding)
So as all this is going on and you’re brand new at post, did it ever occur to you that you maybe, this is not where I want to be, maybe this is not where I want to stay?
Never. I When we were bombed that day, this whole group, this whole Embassy, everybody there, it didn’t matter where you were, USAID Peace Corps, all of us, just were one unit. And I attribute that to Ambassador Lange, you were an outstanding leader. (audience applauding) So, yeah, I don’t think any of us missed a step. I think each of us, each and every one of us were, we have to get forward, we won’t let, I was going to say a bad word, we won’t let them win. We’re going to make sure that the United States is here performing, doing what we, our purpose and duties.
[DG Perez] And of course, your husband was not there. And your son was not there. Can you talk a little bit about how you reconnected?
Wow. Yeah. So Charlie was, we were all in London, and as the Secretary said, I kissed them good bye, not knowing when I’d see them again. We had, we took these assignments knowing full well that we were going to be separated. And we were just what we termed an African commute away. So you never know how long it’s going to take. I’ll tell you how long it took the first time that I actually reconnected with them. It was a couple of week later. Charlie, of course, arrived, I think the Saturday after the bombing and was immediately taken from the airport to the temporary Embassy at USAID in Nairobi and just went to work. Forbes stayed with his grandmother in London for about a week I think. So we were just work, work, work, work, work. So it was about two weeks later, three weeks later, I said to one of my colleagues, you know, my leg really hurts. But I literally was bruised from head to toe. Couldn’t tell, you know, and I had this injury on my leg, they called it a blunt force trauma, so I went to the doctor, our local doctor, Dr. DeSuza, and I said, you know, my leg hurts but I don’t see anything, I don’t know what’s going on. So he started pressing my leg and everything and all of the sudden, his thumbs went right through my skin. And he turned around and said, oh, dead meat. And I looked at him and I said, Doc, for once in my life, I wanted a medical I didn’t understand. (audience laughing) So we were very fortunate, it was actually turning gangrene, and so they decided they needed to get me out of there, and so that’s when I was reunited with the boys. But, Secretary Albright had come to visit. So I awaited for that, and everybody said, come with us on the plane, we’ll take you to Nairobi, we can take you there. So, that’s fine. We get to the plane, and it broke down. And I’m sitting on the plane watching my what was it, Air Kenya flight, whatever it was, take off, and I’m going, I should have been on that plane. So we ended up going on a military aircraft to Nairobi, and Charlie and Forbes are there to meet me. Two things, first of all, I’m not quite sure who dressed Forbes, because I looked at him and I said, wow, that’s quite a combination. (audience laughing) and the second thing was when I kissed my husband good bye, he had nice dark hair. When I saw him again, he was gray.
Wow. In just a few weeks, that’s amazing. I do appreciate the fact that the planes break down because I actually travel on the Secretary’s aircraft many many times and unfortunately they sometimes did that. And I had no idea that it happened in this context. So, sometimes it is better to take Air Kenya. We won’t tell the Air Force that. So you had an incredibly unique experience, obviously, in Tanzania, but you also went through the aftermath of the bombing in Nairobi, and, I don’t know, how did that come about. So I think you helped in both places, did you not?
I did. So it was actually one of the first collaborative events, I’m not quite sure what to call it, between Ambassador Bushnell and Ambassador Lange. They had went to bat for us to reconnect Charlie and I in Nairobi. So working with the DG to get a compassionate curtailment for me so I could go to the other bomb site. So, that is how it worked out. And when I got there, I had an amazing, I hope she’s in the audience, I can’t see her, Kay Gotell was the Information Management Officer and I thank her very much for giving me the opportunity to be in such a leadership role that she gave me, especially as a first tour, IMS, She put me in charge of the contractors that were building out the interim office building, which was a beautiful place on Nairobi Park, it was gorgeous. There were about 175 contractors there putting in the telephone infrastructure, the networking infrastructure, building out our combined transmission facility, putting in the satellite dishes, and everything that comes with our communications back to the United States so there was about 175 of them and they kept on saying where’s that IPC dude? So I went back to the office one day, and of course it was a hard hat area, and one of my colleagues, Steve Akerman, he said, they shouldn’t be calling you a dude, and he goes over and does something on his computer, and comes back and he’s got a little sign that he puts on my hard hat and it’s Rudolph, I had the nose, and it says IPC Dudette. So I was given that opportunity, and so was Forbes actually, when we were installing computers in the new building, it was a weekend, and I called up Kay and I said, do you mind if I bring Forbes, I haven’t seen him for days, I was working very long days, I’d go early mornings so that I’d miss the traffic and typically be coming home about 11 o’clock at night, working to get this building put together as quickly as we could, so Forbes came to work with me on a Saturday. And he had the task of connecting all the keyboards and the mice to the back of the computers. They were color coded, so all he had to do was put the green in the green and purple in the purple and he was under the desks, which he was small enough to do, so actually somewhere in his box of memories is an overtime slip that Kay signed for working on a Saturday for us.
[DG Perez] Which is absolutely great. And you’ve glossed over this, but I think it’s important to remember, you were a tandem couple, separated, not together, making a conscious choice to pursue your careers in different places, and I think when we talk about how difficult it is for foreign service officers and their families, that continues today, that we don’t always have the ability to serve together. It affects families, in this way, this was a very tragic moment, but it affects families all the time and the separation is not easy. I do love the fact that Forbes was under the desk and normally we don’t take free labor, but I’m glad that Kay took care of that by making sure that at least he had something, you might want to turn it in now and see if we can reimburse you, at the rates of probably $2 an hour back in 1998. But, we do those things all the time and you obviously you and Charlie epitomize the kinds of sacrifices that people make amd we don’t think about very often, but it happens every day. Lizzie, there’s something else about you that I think is just absolutely incredible, because you have had a fairly unique career path. You were a family member and I believe you came in and you worked as an OMS, as an Office Management Specialist, and then eventually got into IT. I’d love for you to talk a little bit about that, I think family members bring so much to our organization. I like you was a family member first before I joined the foreign service. Back in the old days they called us PIT employees, yes exactly, so you and I were PITS. Not a terribly good word to use. And then I was telling somebody yesterday, I graduated to be a CLO, so that was a big step up, then eventually into the foreign service. But I would love to hear a little bit about your path.
Okay, so word to everybody, tragedy seems to kind of follow me. My very first job was in the Puta Mozambique and unfortunately we had had some family members PNG’d, so I was hired as the assistant GSO, or assistant to the GSO, not, anyway, to pack out those family members. So that was my very first introduction to the foreign service. And I continued to work as the assistant to the GSO for the rest of that tour. And then when I moved on to the next assignment with my husband, I worked as a secretary, and eventually joining the foreign service as a secretary. I don’t think we were OMS’s yet at that point. And I did, what was it, three, four tours as an OMS, and when we were in Ethiopia, I decided that I would like to do a career change. I’d been working in the Information Program Center on and off as the back-up communicator, if you remember,
[DG Perez] I do remember.
I don’t think they do that anymore, but that’s a role that I had played quite often. And I really liked it, so I thought, it was time to make a change and the Africa bureau gave me that opportunity and that was me going to Dar es Salaam and Charlie going to Nairobi. And it was a very difficult choice. Forbes was young, he was five, so we had a hard decision to make there. But I think it is an incredibly rewarding having tandems in the Embassy. I think that the Department benefits tremendously from a cadre of very, I’m sorry, as the EFM’s, we get a lot of EFM’s that are very qualified and bring a lot to the foreign service and I, I think that maybe they’re under appreciated a little bit but I think that we’re very, very fortunate to have that, with the EFM’s. But as a tandem, it is a very tough. You’re not always going to get assignment together. And especially with Charlie, went up in the ranks and then eventually me too, it became increasingly more difficult, in fact this is year 11 that we have not served together, so the last three assignments, I think or four, three or four assignments for Charlie, in the service, we were separated. You know, and that, how do you, we just really took care of each other making sure that we were in communication, keeping that strong I think is what’s kept our marriage so strong. And I think people have to work hard at that. I hope that nobody has to do that, but unfortunately I think if you do take on that role as being a tandem that it’s not always going to be together. What we did is, who’s turn is it? All right? In the early days. So, following each other, it’s your turn to get the job of choice, and that would be able to promote you or help you in your career in one way or another. So that’s how we handled it, and I think that we did pretty good actually.
I would say so. I would absolutely say so, and to recognize Charlie as well, he told me today he just retired four years ago so you had many decades together doing this career, so kudos to you as well, Charlie. (audience applauding) So, we’re talking about heroes today and obviously you are our first hero that we’re recognizing, but can you talk to me about who some of your heroes might be?
Well, two of them are sitting there. So I think especially Ambassador Lange and Ambassador Bushnell obviously were the very first, I was so I just admire their strength so much. But there are other people. Unfortunately I know he’s not here today because he told me he wouldn’t be able to make it, Ambassador Charles Ray. He was our DCM in Sierra Leone and I learned so much from him. When we met, I was pregnant with Forbes, very pregnant with Forbes actually, and he looked, and Charlie and I went to lunch with him, and he looked at me and he said, I don’t know what to do with you, I’ve never had one of you. And I looked at him and I said, but I know what to do with you because I’ve had a boss like you before. (audience laughing) (audience applauding) But he gave me opportunities and I’m glad he didn’t know what to do with me because he gave me so many incredible opportunities. There was a military project in Freetown, Sierra Leone, that had been languishing for years. People weren’t, very corrupt, they would give them money, would never get any receipts, there was no school so, Charlie Ray said, Lizzie, you’re gonna build Marytown School. And I said, okay. And so I did that. I worked with the, it was a military school, you know, on a military base in Freetown, so I made sure that they gave me the receipts, I made sure that there were bricks being laid and stuff like that, and by the end of my tour, which was a three-year tour, we stayed there longer than anybody else, we had a school. So I felt that because he gave me the opportunity to do something completely different, completely outside of our scope of work, it taught me that anything’s possible. And I’ve tried to give that opportunity to anybody that works for me. You know, you don’t have to just fit in that box, you can do something else, and I hope that, I hope I’ve achieved that over the years, and allowed people to be, grow in ways that they didn’t realize that they could.
[DG Perez] And I would say that’s absolutely true, we actually have heard from some of your former colleagues in that regard. But we have time for one more, I just want to ask you one more question before we take some questions from the audience. We’re in a place now where the foreign service and the civil service in the State Department is relatively junior in terms of time. About 30% have less than five years of experience, and over 60% have less than 10 years. And you have shown resilience over a very long career, whether or not it was in the aftermath of the bombings, but even more so, how you managed your life and your careers. Do you have one word of advice or just something that you would like to tell our newer employees about how they should be thinking of their futures, what’s worked for you, because as I said, you are resilient, you are here today, you have this incredible job now where you will be working as a dean, making sure that our next generation has all of what they need to be successful.
So embrace it folks. It’s an amazing career. I think that everybody needs to come in with their eyes open. Remember first and foremost that they’re a diplomat 24-7, I think that’s really the most important thing for everybody to remember. It’s not, if I’m talking to my subordinates, my new hires, IT professionals, you’re not just an IT professional. You’re representing the United States of America. But to enjoy every single part of it. It comes with so much more than just being, turning screw drivers and you know, you’re there to help people learn to use new technology, you’re a consultant, an IT consultant essentially for everybody else on the mission. So to look at those sort of avenues but take in the culture, learn about where you are, learn the language, learn, go out and enjoy every single aspect of being in the country that you’ve been assigned to. That will make it a much better tour for you and for everybody else. I think that’s probably the best advice.
That’s wonderful advice, I hope everybody really does listen and learn from that. So, we have time for one or two questions. Does anybody in the audience like to ask? Please.
[Audience Member] Thank you Carol. This is great story and I read it as a matter of fact online. One of the things, excuse me, Tommy Grant, Civil Service Association, one of the things I wanted to mention is thank you for being the dean. Communication is very important. One of the times that I was serving on a task force, the mode of communication back in the day was not what we want it to be, we had a call from an NGO here, it said, we have a woman imminently giving birth and she needs a C-section. And what I had to go through at the time to communicate that to some of our people on the ground was less than desirable, but thank God that person was found and medevacked out and gave birth to a healthy baby boy in Frankfurt, so you know that would have been a horrible thing for that not to have happened. So thank you for being the dean who’s going to make sure that communications for something like that is as smooth as it can be. It’s as little as picking up a cell phone and calling people on the ground to let them know what’s going on. Today, we face domestic terrorism like you saw, unfortunately, in Dar es Salaam. What I want to know from you is how can I or how can any of us look at what we must face all over the globe, possibilities like that, you’re resilience, the way you jump back, the way you are now, I’m sure there’re tears there, but you don’t show them. How can you help us cope with today’s, as Carol said, new normal? Thank you very much for your service.
Thank you. That’s a huge question. I think take care of yourself. I think that we don’t do enough of taking care of ourselves. Make sure that you’re as prepared as you can be. I, just think that, take care of your loved ones, make sure they’re okay. Be opsec as we call it overseas, make sure you’re watching what’s around you. You’re right, everywhere is not safe. Who knew the haven of peace was gonna have a bomb that day. Who knew that terrorism was going to be in Paris and everywhere else, in Brussels, it’s just, everywhere, you just have to be very conscious of your operational security. That’s all I can say I think.
Do we have another question from the audience?
[Audience Member] Is it okay if I steal from Dan?
Sure.
[Steve] So hi Lizzie
Hi Steve.
[Steve] I met Lizzie in Baghdad, so it’s absolutely true what she said about giving opportunities outside of the norm, outside of the normal scope. So, Lizzie headed up the team in charge of the communications aspect of the military to civilian handover back in 2011, and we had very limited resources to hand to our managing colleagues, and so Lizzie went around and she used the resources she had available, the crew in the IPC, and she anointed us as consultants for the various VRT’s, and she gave us the tools to allow us to do that job. One of the things I observed there, and I’ve listened to lots of stories or read things, what I observed from Lizzie is that she was very calm in a very stressful situation. She always had a great sense of humor and morale within the team was always very high. And I just wonder, how do you maintain that as a leader in a stressful place and stressful situation. How do you take care of all the people on your team?
I think I attribute actually to going through the bombing. We definitely found that people are our most important assets in the State Department is our people. I learned a lot of lessons over the years from Charlie. Charlie is an amazing manager. John Lange, how he handled and helped us. And I think I’ve learned from just really great mentorship I’ve received. And I do want to know how my people are. I do need to know, and it’s not just work, you know, something’s happened in the home, if they choose to share that with me, I follow up to make sure that everything’s okay. And I’ve always felt that if I have a team that knows that they can rely on me and they can trust me, they can bring me any problems, and I provide the support, I’ve got a much better work force. So that I’ve always taken care of, it’s always been really important that I walk the walk, that I portray what I would like to receive. And so if I’m a whirling dervish, that’s what my team will look like. And I can’t work with that. So it’s very important for me to remain calm and professional in every aspect. And as I’m reminded every day, I’m a diplomat 24-7, so I’m also a diplomat in the office. (audience applauding)
So unfortunately that’s all the time we have this morning. I hope you’ll all join me in another round of applause for Lizzie Slater and the Director General. (audience applauding) Well, thank you all for coming today. I’m sure you now agree with us. If you didn’t know Lizzie before, why she was such an outstanding choice for our first Heroes of Diplomacy, we think she is going to set the bar so high for this. But we’re delighted to welcome her as the Secretary’s already stolen my thunder and noted that she will be the new Dean of the School of Applied Information Technology I can’t think of a more inspiring or better leader for that school or for the Foreign Service Institute or for the foreign service. So thank you Lizzie for your continued service. It means, by the way, she will continue to not live, at least on a daily basis, with her husband who is living in Salt Lake City. So Lizzie’s sacrifice and her commitment to the institution continues even in this next role. So thank you so much Lizzie for that.
Sure. (audience applauding) So if this conversation has inspired you and if it hasn’t I don’t know why, (audience laughing) I want you to submitting more nominations for the Heroes of Diplomacy campaign. I would refer you all to the link in the department notice for details, or you can always email HeroesofDiplomacy@state.gov. At this time it’s my honor to welcome all of you across the hall to the Delegates’ Lounge where there will be some artifacts from the bombings in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, including some things from Lizzie’s office on that day. Thank you all for coming. And I look forward to seeing you over in the Delegates’ Lounge. Thank you. (audience applauding)