The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2007

J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 49 n June 28, Ambassador Joan Margaret Clark received the American Foreign Service Association’s award for Life- time Contributions to American Diplomacy, in recognition of a distin- guished 44-year career. Born in Ridgefield Park, N.J., on March 27, 1922, Ms. Clark attended Katharine Gibbs School in New York City before joining the Foreign Service as an administrative assis- tant in 1945. She spent the first five years of her career in Berlin; her other overseas posts were London, Belgrade, Luxembourg and Valletta. Commissioned as a Foreign Service officer in 1957, she spent the bulk of her Washington, D.C., assignments in administrative and personnel work. Among many other accomplishments, she helped set up the Foreign Service Institute’s first management tradecraft course, and later established an MBA course for administrative officers at Columbia University. From 1979 to 1981, Ms. Clark served as ambassador to the Republic of Malta. Upon returning to Washington, she serv- ed as director general of the Foreign Service until 1983, focusing on implementation of the 1980 Foreign Service Act. She then spent the final six years of her diplomatic career as assistant secretary for consular affairs, helping make machine- readable visas a reality, before retiring in 1989. Amb. Clark has been chairman of the Senior Living Foundation since its inception in 1994, and is on the board of directors of the American Foreign Service Protective Association. A longtime member of Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired, she was DACOR’s president from 1997 to 1999. She is also a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy. Her many previous honors include the Department of State’s Superior Honor and Distinguished Honor Awards, the Luther I. Reprogle Award for Management Improve- ment (1975), the President’s Honor Award (1983) and Presi- dent’s Meritorious Award (1990), and the Director General’s Cup, which she received in 2003. Foreign Service Journal Editor Steve Honley interviewed Amb. Clark at AFSA on April 23. FSJ: First of all, congratulations on your award for life- time contributions to American diplomacy, which places you in the same company as such career diplomats as Morton Abramowitz, Richard Parker, Tom Pickering and Larry Eagleburger, to name some past winners. What would you say have been your strengths as a diplomat? JC: That’s a difficult question to answer! I’m not sure I have that many strengths, other than in the management area, and the fact that I enjoy working with people. FSJ: Management is an important Foreign Service function that doesn’t always get the attention it deserves. JC: No, it certainly doesn’t. FSJ: What drew you to that kind of work? JC: I was always very fortunate in the bosses I had, beginning in Berlin and continuing thereafter. I learned from them how important it is to keep up morale, and that one of the ways you do this is to have a smooth operation of support for all your people and for your local employees. FSJ: When did you first decide you wanted to join the Foreign Service? JC: I wanted to do something to help with the [World A C AREER OF M ANAGEMENT E XCELLENCE : J OAN M. C LARK L AST MONTH AFSA RECOGNIZED THE RETIRED AMBASSADOR ’ S MANY CONTRIBUTIONS TO A MERICAN DIPLOMACY AND HER LIFETIME OF PUBLIC SERVICE . O B Y S TEVEN A LAN H ONLEY Steven Alan Honley, a Foreign Service officer from 1985 to 1997, is the editor of the Foreign Service Journal.