Working for the U.S. Department of State

Meet the Department of State Diplomat on Campus - Anne O'Leary

Anne O’Leary - After returning last fall from Kabul, Afghanistan, where she was the U.S. Embassy’s Counselor for Public Affairs, Anne O’Leary spent ten months in Washington, DC as Senior Recruiter for the State Department -- unique preparation for her current assignment as Diplomat-in-Residence (DIR) on the Berkeley campus of the University of California. Based at the Career Center, Anne’s mission is to inspire, advise, and assist students at all levels and in a wide range of disciplines in seeking opportunities with the Department of State. She offers Cal students, alumni, faculty, and administrators direct and regular access to the latest news on State Department jobs and internships, and will provide support in navigating the recent changes in the Foreign Service entry process. Anne also liaises throughout the Pacific Northwest with professional organizations and academic institutions involved in world affairs and interested in the challenges of public service. She welcomes opportunities to serve as a panelist in departmental programs, participate in university and civic events, meet with student groups, and offer classroom presentations.

Anne O’Leary joined the Foreign Service in 1980 and has risen to its senior ranks through assignments that have brought her into contact with some of the major issues in U.S. foreign policy. A public diplomacy officer and Arabic speaker, she was more often than not the first woman assigned to the various positions she occupied throughout the Arab and Muslim world.

Highlights of Anne’s career show how rich and varied a Foreign Service life can be. Most recently, Anne played a leading role among the international community in Kabul, coordinating strategic communication efforts and supporting Afghan initiatives in public information. In previous diplomatic assignments, she set up the first reciprocal delegations between the United States and Libya; started a micro-scholarship program for disadvantaged Moroccan youth that has been replicated in 44 countries; and rebuilt American press, academic and cultural programs with Lebanon following its civil war. Anne brought Israelis and Palestinians together in the United States to reduce incitement in a program that was the US Government’s first “deliverable” following the Wye River Accords. After Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests, she arranged a similar program for concerned citizens from the two nations. She has helped Burmese and Tibetan refugees secure Fulbright fellowships, and during a three-year posting in New Delhi she was the only US diplomat running official programs with the Kingdom of Bhutan. Anne managed a popular cultural center in Alexandria, Egypt on a shoestring budget, and doubled the range and size of professional exchange programs during her years in Jordan and Bahrain. She also brought three international delegations to the United States in support of global Y2K remediation efforts.

Anne earned commendations from the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command for arranging international media access in the Persian/Arabian Gulf during the Iraq-Iran war, as well as a State Department Superior Honor Award for her work following the attack on the U.S.S. Stark. Other awards recognized her contributions to public diplomacy training, to the U.S. - Morocco Free Trade Agreement, and to cultural exchange between the United States and the nations of North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. Anne has also received awards from the Egyptian and Jordanian governments.

Born in Singapore, Anne grew up in a San Francisco family with many ties to the Pacific Rim. During her high school years, she focused on Latin America and Spanish, spending a summer in a small Mexican town through the Experiment in International Living. While attending Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and looking for a new language to study, her cousin, the late Professor Jack Walsh of Cal’s Spanish Department, steered her towards Arabic. An uncle working at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut invited her to spend part of her junior year at Lebanon’s American University, where UC students regularly studied prior to the civil war. This experience laid the foundation for what has been a 34-year engagement with the Arab and Muslim world.

After she returned to the United States, Anne O’Leary was selected to become one of only five interns in the very small internship program that the State Department ran in the seventies – two years ahead of her current boss Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, another former State Department intern. Following the internship and before joining the U.S. Foreign Service, Anne worked as an assistant to the Syrian Ambassador in Washington, DC and gained a unique international perspective on American diplomacy.

Anne continues to work on her Arabic, at turns delighting in and despairing at its complexity, but feels most at home in that language. Anne also hopes to revive her now-rusty Spanish without losing her French, and to add to her rather limited Dari. She has studied a bit of Hindi and is now venturing into learning Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk) -- the first language of her fiancé.

The State Department’s award-winning website (www.careers.state.gov) answers virtually all the basic questions anyone may have about career paths and internships within State’s offices throughout the United States and at 265 locations overseas. Visitors to the Career Center are always welcome stop by Anne’s office and select from the display of pamphlets and written materials outside her door. Those who are serious about internships and careers with State or have additional questions about international careers will find individual appointments and group information sessions the best ways to benefit from Cal’s Diplomat in Residence.

Anne welcomes all inquiries and referrals from the university community. She arranges appointments via email. Although her regional responsibilities prohibit fixed office hours, Anne takes “mini-appointments” on a drop-in basis whenever possible to accommodate visitors to the Cal Career Center at 2111 Bancroft Way. The DIR Office is located in Room 212, right off the Career Center Information Lab. Ahlan wa sahlan – Bienvenido – Bienvenue – Welcome!

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