Thank you, Counselor Kenney, and greetings to AFSA President Ambassador Barbara Stephenson, colleagues, relatives, and friends who have traveled from throughout the United States to be with us today.

Over 50 of my guests have come from more than 10 states outside of the metropolitan area, with the biggest delegation of 13 from California, led by the Honorable former Congresswoman Diane Watson, my sister, Dr. Eugenia Davis Clements, and her husband, Dr. Jeffery Clements. I am thrilled that you are here to share in this celebration with me and with my colleagues who are being recognized for constructive dissent and exemplary performance. I offer my hearty congratulations to my fellow award winners and a warm welcome to your guests. I would like to thank the AFSA staff, especially Ian Houston, Perri Green, Asgeir Sigfusson and Stacy Williams of the Thursday Luncheon Group for all your work related to this ceremony.

My success in the Foreign Service was fueled by many role models and mentors during my career - some of whom are with us today including Ambassadors Hank Cohen, Edward Perkins, Princeton Lyman, Marc Grossman, Jendayi Fraser and Dr. Eddie Williams. Others have passed on but left an indelible impression on me including Dr. John Withers Senior, six-time ambassador Terence Todman, and the incomparable Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs, Mary Ryan.

I am particularly pleased to have been selected to receive AFSA’s Lifetime Contributions to American Diplomacy Award because, AFSA and I have always been on the same wave length. Even in instances when I was Director General and we didn’t agree on the means of achieving our goals, we always agreed on the fundamental principal that the key to enhancing the effectiveness of the Foreign Service is through a focus on its people and the resources needed to achieve U.S. foreign policy goals and objectives. Thank you, AFSA!

You all know the legend of the Phoenix – the bird that rose from its own ashes and was more beautiful and magnificent than ever. Well, I was born in Phoenix, Arizona and was raised in Atlanta, whose symbol is the Phoenix. So I always believed that from ashes you could make beautiful things, from chaos you could make peace and from despair you could bring happiness. As a proud child of the South, I bear the scars of segregation and discrimination, but these scars ignited in me a passionate desire to make the world a better place. Consequentially, I recognized that the best possible career for me would be in diplomacy.

As so it came to pass, about half a century ago, when I was a student at the University of California at Berkeley, early one morning I was out on the picket line protesting for a Black Studies Program. At mid-day, I put my sign down rushed to the airport, boarded a plane to Washington, and entered the Foreign Service of the United States. The first thing I was required to do was to sign an oath that said I would not strike against the U.S. Government. Oh! My, I’ve been co opted, I said and never looked back! 

Everybody who knows me, knows that I love the State Department. That I believe it is a wonderful institution and that the greatest honor of my life has been to serve this organization and the people in it. As I stand here I am reminded that this beautiful room, this building, our embassies and missions around the world have energy, purpose and passion because of the people who occupy them – our patriots who apply their talents to defending freedom and promoting peace. I learned early on what a valuable resource the people of the Department are and  fully agree with my former boss, Secretary Colin Powell that “Organization doesn’t really accomplish anything.  Plans don’t accomplish anything, either. Theories of management don’t much matter, since endeavors succeed or fail because of the people involved.”

My belief in the fundamental important of people as the Department’s primary resource lead me to establish the School of Leadership and Management at The Foreign Service Institute (FSI), when I was director there in 1999 and as Director General to lead the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative which addressed the dire shortfalls in the numbers and skills of State Department employees. I am particularly proud of establishing the School of Leadership and Management because it is helping to change the culture of the Foreign and Civil Service to give more value to training and the concept of professional development.

The State Department’s mission and its very reason for existence is diplomacy. And in order to have world-class diplomacy, we must have world-class diplomats - diplomats who understand that our success hinges on good leadership and that leadership is a privilege, not a right. Someone once said that diplomats must think twice before saying nothing. Well, that formula just won’t work, not in this complex, tumultuous, rapidly changing world. The international challenges today are much more varied and seemingly more intense than when I joined Foreign Service at the end of the 60s. International terrorism, nuclear proliferation, cyber security, regional conflicts and public health crisis are among the issues that diplomats grapple with on a daily basis. Consequently, I believe that today’s diplomat must be prepared to practice not just diplomacy, but mega-diplomacy.

It is not enough to recruit the best and the brightest.  Of course, that is the essential first step.  Additionally the Department must do everything possible to cultivate the talents and grow the capacity of its people. That means continuous education and training sustained across an entire career. Ambassador Nancy McEldowney, Director of FSI told me “We often say our people are our most important asset.  But far too often we fail to put reality behind the rhetoric. We still push people out to post and into new jobs without giving them the benefit of full training and preparation. We still have a culture that minimizes the value of study and reflection. And we still do not put the necessary resources into training and education.”

When AFSA President Ambassador Barbara Stephenson was Dean of FSI’s Leadership School, she drove an effort to build a culture of leadership throughout the Department. I applaud that effort and hope it continues. I also hope that more work will be done to strengthen a culture of learning, so that training is deeply valued, not just by individuals but by the Department’s principals and its operational policies. Good leadership recognizes that diversity is essential in utilizing the best of America’s intellectual capital to support U.S. diplomatic efforts. It is incumbent upon the State Department, and those of you who are in leadership positions to continue and step up efforts to promote equal opportunity and inclusion for all American employees of the Foreign and Civil Service, to include equal opportunity for all races, ethnicities, ages, genders, and service-disabled veterans, with a focus on traditionally underrepresented minority groups.”

I enjoy my continued “voluntary” work chiding, lobbying and pressing Department officials diversity issue. I hope the feeling is mutual!

And speaking of voluntary work, for those of you who doubt it, there is life after the Foreign Service. I am busily involved in building a global network of successful international businesswomen as chair and founding member of the International Women’s Entrepreneurial Challenge Foundation (IWEC) which will celebrate it’s tenth year of growth and success in 2017.

In closing, I thank AFSA for the singular honor of the Lifetime Contributions to American Diplomacy Award. I will value it and this day forever. I close by saying of my amazing career in the Foreign Service and my love for the U.S Department of State, that short of being a multi-millionaire, there is nothing that I would have rather done more than to be a U.S. Foreign Service officer and an ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the United States of America - in a career where I could soar like a Phoenix.