Al Gombis' Intro

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today on the servant leadership podcast we're joined by Al gambus a 30-year veteran and leader of the US Department

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of State Al's career offers a rare glimpse into the inner workings of one of America's Most Fascinating and

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impactful institutions from navigating Global diplomacy to preserving the rich history of the state department Al has

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been at the Forefront of critical foreign policy initiatives his journey includes moment M as extraordinary as a

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personal encounter with Nelson Mandela and as practical as leading collaborative efforts that have reshaped

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workplace policies for employees of all faiths in this episode Al shares how servant leadership has guided him

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through the complexities of his work fostering collaboration across cultural and political divides he also reveals

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little known stories about the history and role of the state department including why it's called the Department of State and its enduring connection to

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the Great Seal of the United States whether you're passionate about leadership fascin at by history or

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curious about America's role on the global stage this conversation is packed with insights and Unforgettable stories

Welcome Al Gombis

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Al thank you so much for joining us today thanks it's again it's a privilege to be here I'm I'm excited about this

1:14
opportunity thanks I know a little bit about your background just from having known you for a while could you share

Al's Career Journey

1:20
with our audience how you ended up at the state department sure um I should uh

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start by saying that whatever views I might Express are my own and they do not

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reflect those of the Department of State or the US government but um it's uh well

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I I'll try to give you the bridge version this is a long and complicated uh Road I would not have expected to be

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where I am if it had been up to me but uh opportunities arise sometimes in ways

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that you don't expect um I believe that uh there aren't any coincidences out

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there I do think that uh Providence plays a hand in these things but uh it

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started um when I was in graduate school at the University of Illinois at Springfield is what it's called now it

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was sangman State University back then and one of the requirements for that degree was that I do an internship I

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applied for a whole bunch of internships but the only one I got was in the department of state's African Affairs

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Bureau and I'm pretty certain that the reason I got that uh internship was because the summer before I had spent in

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South Africa this would have been the summer of 1990 and if you recall this was a time when apart tide was still in

2:34
effect in South Africa uh at this point Mandela had been out of prison for about 6 months after having spent 27 years on

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Robin Island and uh I went down there

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because a friend of mine in college uh had spent the previous summer down in

2:52
South Africa he came back and he told me about his trip and I thought it was

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fascinating the things that he had seen and done people he had talked with and uh of course this was a time uh when

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college campuses all across this country were really interested in what was going on down in South Africa and uh there

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were protests on campuses not unlike what we've seen recently here um in our in our time and um I was really

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interested in you know what's true what's not true what's really going on down there a lot of different uh

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perspectives in the news and and so this was an opportunity to go do something unique exciting I spent the summer of

3:35
1990 down there the uh Folks at the state department saw what I had done the

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previous summer and they said this this guy here sounds like he'd be a good fit as an intern in the state department so

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I did that at the end of my internship in the African Affairs Bureau there was

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a letter that had been addressed to uh the the previous office director of the

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office in which I was working and the senior secretary in the office uh took

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him his letter he had been reassigned at that point to the office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs what we call the China

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desk and um she took her old boss his mail and she came back afterward and

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said uh yeah I was talking with my old boss and um he said that he was looking to hire an entry level position in at

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the China desk and and I recommended you and he said if you're interested to go talk to him I hadn't been looking for a

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job in the state department I didn't know there was a vacancy at the China desk but this is one of those uh

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incidents where this opportunity just dropped in my lap I never could have planned that in a million years but I

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went and talked to him and after about a 15-minute conversation he offered me a position and so in February of 1992 I

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started as a as a full-fledged civil servant at the China desk in the state department wow and you have been there a

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long time so from 1991 as an intern uh 1992 for my first real job in the

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department to now it's what 33 years I guess Al together wow um yeah I've seen

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seen a lot over the course of three decades and uh I know I know where the bodies are buried as they

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say well you shared with me a little bit before about how the state department even became a thing um could you share

History of The State Department

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with our audience a little bit of the history of the state department sure so the state department uh in fact the name

5:33
the state department is a little odd because most governments will call it the Foreign Affairs Ministry or something along those lines uh the

5:39
ministry for uh foreign affairs and trade or something like that uh we call it the state department we're the only

5:45
country in the world that does that but it's because of its Legacy and how it was first formed George Washington's

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original cabinet consisted of the Attorney General the Secretary of War the Secretary of the Treasury and the

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Secretary of State and Thomas Jefferson was the first Secretary of State and the

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secretary of state was basically the state the the secretary for everything else that's why it's called the state

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department the department of the Interior the Department of Homeland Security the department of uh literally

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everything else fell to the state department and over time these functions

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have spun off to other agencies and departments uh but the one function

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that's left to the state department is the foreign Affairs function so the state department handles Foreign Affairs

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but it's still called the state department and that's that's uh that's how that came about So when you say

What Does The "Foreign Affairs" Function Mean?

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Foreign Affairs what does that mean to your average person uh well to the average American

6:44
it would involve things like U passports uh if you apply for a passport it's

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going to go to the state department and that's who's going to issue you your passport it involves a lot of things

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involving for instance trade it's going to involve all of our relations with other countries generally speaking uh

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some most countries in the world we have official diplomatic relations uh with them there's a few countries out there

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that we don't there's um some places that we don't officially recognize as

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even a country but to a large

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degree they get a lot of the the similar treatment as a country

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might um and I won't name any names for for that ltic atory but we don't have official diplomatic relations with a

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country like Iran for instance or with North Korea um even even our relations

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with Cuba are rather problematic um that vacillates back and forth between

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administrations uh but uh most countries in the world we have official diplomatic

7:48
relations which means we have an ambassador and an embassy if you walk into the Sea Street entrance of the

7:54
building which is the Diplomatic entrance of the Harry EST Truman building uh where the state department

7:59
is head recordered you will see Flags uh lined up across the back of the

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receptionist desk it's a long long line of flags one for every country that we

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have official diplomatic relations with and uh it's it's pretty pretty awesome

8:16
to to see just how many countries um we have official representation in so

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that's that's uh the function and we have uh desk officers for literally

8:28
every country in the world world they're in the regional bureaus which is how the department is set up you've got uh

8:35
Regional bureaus and you've got functional bureaus so You' have them for East Asia and the Pacific as one

8:40
Regional Bureau uh Western Hemisphere Affairs would be another Bureau African Affairs uh Europe and EUR Asian Affairs

8:49
uh near Eastern Affairs uh South and Central Asian Affairs these are the regional bureaus in the department and

8:56
then you've got functional bureaus which is where I spent most of my time I've worked in a couple of the regional Affairs bureaus but you know the uh

9:03
Bureau of democracy human rights and labor the Bureau of uh U International

9:09
narcotics and law enforcement the Bureau of political military Affairs these are all functional issues that we cover in

9:16
the department uh total there's I think last I looked there was a little over 880,000 employees for the Department of

9:22
State most of them are are overseas uh and in fact most of them are

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foreign Nationals working at our embassies just keeping things moving along keeping the the trains running on

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time as they say um about um give or

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take 10,000 11,000 are civil servants like me about 13,000 give or take are

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Foreign Service officers uh another 10 to 11,000 our contractors uh and then the rest are are

9:52
foreign Nationals that uh as I said help keep things running at our embassies and consulates around the world wow

Different Careers and Focus Within The State Department

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so on this podcast we talk a lot about leadership and servant leadership and

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over the years regardless of who has been president or what party has been in

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power there have been so many amazing leaders at at every

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turn it's an interesting shift because I'd love for you to share with our audience how the state department has

10:23
some people who might be there for their whole life and other people who are coming in and out somewhat frequently

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depending on their role how does it change as different political parties get in power and what does that look

10:36
like functionally in terms of leading well and casting vision and all of that stuff that's an interesting question

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um this is totally me my take over over working there for three three decades

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plus um but I remember a time where I would describe uh our our foreign policy

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as our polic our foreign policy the politics stopped at the water's edge and

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generally speaking we had a fairly consistent foreign policy across administrations uh this would you know

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didn't matter what party it was for the most part we had uh a a consensus on

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what our policies should look like um I'm not so sure that that's the case anymore or that that people would

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describe our policies foreign policies that way anymore uh I've had people describe to

11:32
me that we have done such a one of my colleagues

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said he's never seen so much Whiplash in our foreign policy as what happened on January 20th uh

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20121 and um I'm not sure that that's a good thing

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but it is what it is I remember watching uh an interview with a Polish Diplomat

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shortly after the current Administration uh well the Biden Administration came into power in

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2021 and uh this polish Diplomat was talking about uh our policy with regard

12:10
to climate change and he said you know when President Biden appointed uh secretary kery John kery to

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be our climate change Zar he said he knew that the United States was serious

12:24
about the climate change issue but that he and his government weren't going to

12:29
to follow the US government lead on that issue because he couldn't be certain

12:37
that our policy wouldn't change 180 degrees four years later and that's a

12:43
problem for our our US foreign policy when our partners and allies uh and even

12:49
those who are not our partners and allies can't be certain that we're going

12:55
to have a consistent approach to some of these issues and so you know I would love for us to to take

13:02
some of the politics out of it and give back to a consistent foreign policy that that we can we can agree on I think that

13:09
would be better for for the country as a whole my my personal two cents we'll see what happens well un functionally how it

Politically Appointed Employees

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works as as a new president comes in and there's new Senators new house there

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also is a lot of new appointees there are in the state department how does that work uh there's about 1,200 1400 um

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what are called presidentially appointed Senate confirmed positions that have to

13:36
be filled and uh the state department has more of them than than most federal

13:42
government agencies and departments so it can take quite a while for everybody to fall into place uh overall there's

13:49
about 4,000 I believe political appointees uh most of whom are are

13:55
designated as what are called Schedule C their political point they come with

14:00
the administration and they leave with an Administration and um so you know the

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start of the Trump Administration all the schedule sees from the Biden Administration submit their resignations and leave and the Trump Administration

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gets to appoint their own schedule Seas to fill those positions um and those tend to be the

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senior advisers to the Senate confirmed political appointees so they're fairly senior

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officials and you know you can have a pretty dramatic shift in your policy when when you have that many senior

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officials leaving and a whole new crop of senior officials coming in and then helps to account for some of the swings

14:38
that we've seen um over the course of my my tenure in the department I I think

Leading Well When Dealing With Change

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it's interesting because uh as just an average American uh I would imagine that

14:51
people think of the government as pushing um long-term initiatives forward

14:58
and they're not being much change especially from the government you hear about well the government doesn't move fast enough or doesn't change enough and

15:05
so con consumers or citizens or people who just live here might think um that

15:11
everything is very stable uh and in their lives they might feel like it's there's a lot of fluctuation with new

15:18
leadership at their companies with them being put in new leadership roles and not realizing that their company

15:24
situation might look a lot like what the government looks like different leadership often they might be put in

15:29
different leadership roles and there's a lot of movement how do you think people

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or based on what you see in the state department what do you think takeaways are in terms of how people can lead well

15:40
or be led well amidst so much change well change is inevitable you're going to have change and to the extent that

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you can help the uh people around you at all levels of people above you people

15:53
below you to embrace the change to socialize what's coming

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um that's all for the good uh to help people understand that uh you know

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whatever change may be coming that's making them ill at ease is not the end of the world that's a that's an important aspect of leadership um and

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you know help them see the the opportunities that are that that change presents is also a very good thing and

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if you can help to instill a positive attitude for the change whatever that change might be that's that's one one

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good thing about it the other thing as I said is see

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how try to find ways to to make that change as seamless as possible not

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always possible but to the extent that it is and and uh try to draw out as much

16:46
consistency as you can um that can often times be helpful as well uh figure out

16:52
what's what's uh what what you have to change and figure out what you need to

16:59
you know die on that hill over and see where you can make adjustments I think

17:05
that's probably the best that I could do with it with that question without and you might not be able to answer this at

Transitions In Government

17:11
all but without naming names or departments within the state department are there one or two examples that you can think of where it either went really

17:18
well some of the transition or really poorly wow uh good transition

17:29
I think the transition from well certainly the transition from Ronald Reagan to George

17:35
HW Bush was pretty good U that was a that was a fairly seamless one going

17:43
from president Trump to President Biden my personal assessment was that that was

17:49
pretty dramatic and uh and and even the one from President Obama to president Trump

17:56
I think was was pretty dramatic as well well and uh you know going forward we'll

18:03
we'll see how this all all plays out it's not done yet it's going to take a while for uh president Trump to get his

18:11
folks into into in all of the positions in the Department of State um it doesn't

18:17
happen fast uh it's just one of those things my um I remember a briefing once

18:25
from a marine Colonel who worked on our drug interdiction efforts this was back

18:32
in 1999 I think it was uh he was giving a briefing to some DOD Personnel

18:41
Department of Defense personnel and I got to sit in on the briefing and he mentioned that he had this new

18:46
initiative that they were getting ready to to spin up they were just waiting for permission from the state department so

18:53
at the question and answer time I raised my hand and said sir what's the holdup with the state department and his answer

18:59
was well you know how it is at the state department they start slow and throttle back and I thought wow okay now I now I

19:08
have the dod perspective on the state department that was interesting oh that must be hard to hear it was hard to hear

19:14
um I'm not going to say whether I I think he was right or wrong but there's there's a lot of people

Effect Of Politics On Career Civil Servants

19:20
listening who I think uh over however old somebody is it feels like politics

19:27
at some level becomes more important to people maybe as the age um maybe that's

19:34
true maybe that's not true I think it is true I think that that that's been my personal experience is that the higher

19:40
up you go the more the the political winds affect the position um you know whether it was Bill

19:48
Clinton running against George HW Bush when I was at the China desk uh I was

19:54
there for that campaign um you know whether whether Clinton got elected or bush got reelected didn't really affect

20:00
me much at all at that level but uh moving up the ladder certainly I I do

20:07
feel the uh the impact of of the politics involved and even though I'm a career civil servant um yeah it does

20:14
matter well and we don't need to get into specifics of what specifically your roles have done or have looked like but

Recommendations For People Who Want To Make A Difference

20:22
I would be curious to know there's a lot of people who now are motivated to want to make change whatever that means uh to

20:29
them and they want to get involved in making a difference and they're looking to be better servant leaders whatever

20:34
that looks like to them do you ever have recommendations or see a good path for people to actually

20:40
make change in their local government or at a federal level I know you kind of fell into

20:46
it yeah so and Not only would I well so that I mean you have to get involved and

20:51
you you have to be there at um at a

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level where you you're recognized as having some legitimate expertise in whatever it is you're trying to do which

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means it's incumbent on you to know the issue and to know it well you you can't

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just opine because you have an opinion uh it's important for you to to be well

21:14
studied well versed in what it is you're trying to do and that includes understanding the other side's perspective too uh you know I learn an

21:23
awful lot about what I think because I'm listening to people on the other side uh

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and listening intently to try to understand where they're coming from why they hold a position that they do what

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Their experience might be that I might not have had the the uh the the

21:42
privilege of understanding up until that point and you know to a certain extent I think you can you can say it that way um

21:50
until you've walked a mile in somebody else's shoes I guess is the the adage I would I would cite for that and that's

21:58
the point at which I think you then have something legitimate to contribute to the conversation when you understand

22:05
your perspective you also understand the other side's perspective and your contribution is

22:11
something that nobody else is going to be able to make absent your your

22:16
participation that's that's what I strive for doesn't mean I always succeed

22:22
uh but it's it's sort of the goal that I I try to set for myself um and it's a

22:27
high bar it's a high bar so I think that' probably be the first thing I'd say is that you want to make sure that

22:33
you have the legitimate expertise to weigh in uh the next thing is you need

22:39
to figure out a way to to become a player in that process and often times

22:45
that means relationships and when you're talking about relationships there's a whole lot that goes into that networking certainly

22:52
is a part of that and so honing your networking skills developing a process

22:57
for how you uh maintain those relationships uh but also uh thinking

23:05
about how you want to be perceived in those relationships um if you burn

23:12
Bridges that's going to come to haunt you uh Integrity is huge trust is huge

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uh and that's on both sides um the people that are that are on your side and the people that are not and a real

23:29
Victory um is not vanquishing the enemy a real Victory is getting the enemy to

23:35
join your side and so if you think about the the

23:40
opposition as somebody you need to try to convince as opposed to trying to

23:47
marginalize it gives you a very different perspective on what your role is wow that's great perspective because

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I do think a lot of people come in wanting to get involved and make change

23:58
and they come at it fairly um yeah combative and uh and it probably

24:06
hurts more than it helps so that's super perspective but it won't sustain your

24:11
time in office it won't it won't last beyond your time there and I've have I've had bosses like that uh who didn't

24:18
understand political appointees in particular think they're there for a certain period of time and while they're

24:23
there they are going to do their best to bring about the policies that they want

24:29
and then you know as soon as they're out of office the next person coming in reverses everything they did at that's

24:36
not a good way to to um influence in the long run the policies that you're

24:43
putting forward um be a bit more humble bite off a little bit less uh you

24:50
know than than uh you think you can swallow and work with the other side and

24:56
this is how you get to those policies I was talking about earlier where you're going to have more

25:02
consistency look for the things that you can all agree on and push for those

25:08
those are the ones that are most likely to last beyond your tenure and you know that's hard for some

25:13
people to hear uh particularly in this political climate but I think that's wise advice that's what I would

25:20
recommend after after three decades in government I I that's great perspective

Advocating For Faith Communities At The State Department

25:25
and great takeaways for people just in their own companies their own jobs ways to approach things but an internal

25:33
example of you actually doing that at the state department is with something that uh I know you've been involved in

25:40
uh which is Grace you've kind of got people from all walks of life now um

25:46
pushing initiatives forward that you could have come at it pretty combatively and really it's been something

25:51
transformational in the state department can you can you share that with our audience a little bit so yeah uh happy

25:57
to there a lot of a lot of companies these days have eags these employee Affinity

26:04
groups yeah um the state department has them as well they've had them for a number of

26:10
years but about seven eight years ago I guess it was now uh the state of a group

26:18
of us who are Christians said hey why don't we try to form an an eag for

26:27
Christians and we didn't want it to be an in-your-face kind of a thing so the

26:33
way the process works at the state department is you have to get a certain number of signatures on a petition and

26:39
you have to propose a charter for your group and you submit it to a senior

26:46
level uh committee that will review your application and make a recommendation to

26:52
the director General who is the the person in charge of personnel issues in

26:57
the state department and uh the director General will review the recommendations and will

27:04
review the application and make a decision and it turns out that the director General at the time that we

27:10
applied approved our application our application was written

27:15
so that it made clear that we were a Christian group but we were not

27:22
advocating solely for Christians but that we were Christians who believed in religious freedom and so we would

27:29
advocate for any religion to be able to express themselves in the in the

27:34
workplace um even though we were particularly interested in uh advocating

27:40
for Christians so what happened after we were approved we went to some of our

27:45
fellow employees who were of different Faith communities particularly um Muslim employees and Jewish employees and said

27:53
if you would we've blazed a trail here for the first faith-based employ

27:58
organization um if you would like to form one for your faith communities we would support that we will give you a

28:05
copy of our Charter so you can use that as a template show you our application package so you can see what that looks

28:10
like and you know if you want us to write letters on your behalf to the the

28:16
committee that reviews these things we can do that whatever you need we're happy to support your forming an eag for

28:24
your faith community and lo and behold uh both groups did and both were uh

28:31
eventually approved and so now there are eags for Muslims and for for Jewish

28:37
employees and there are times when we collaborate closely with them on on projects that are going to be of benefit

28:44
to all employees of Faith whatever their religious beliefs are um for instance uh

28:51
last year about this time uh the department issued a policy on religious

28:57
accommodation here it is 2023 you'd think the Department of State would have a policy

29:03
on religious accommodation but no it came about because the three of our

29:08
employee organizations created a working group and over the course of a year drafted

29:16
what this policy what we thought this policy should look like and then we sent it out for clearance throughout the

29:21
department and the clearance process is arduous in the state department um which is partly why that Marine colel I was

29:27
talking about earlier said it takes so long to get anything through the system um but it took us a year from the

29:34
start of that uh working group till finally getting the the policy issued by

29:39
the Department of State but now there is a policy on religious accommodation so if you were a Jewish employee for

29:46
example and you want to take off on yam Kapur one of the high holy days um

29:51
there's now a policy in place for for getting that approved and it's pretty

29:57
rigorous um the the way that it's written only the it's not going to

30:02
matter but there's one individual in each Bureau who has the authority to say no and the standard for saying no is

30:09
pretty high uh so an individual supervisor can say yes but can't say no

30:16
if the supervisor doesn't feel that the office can accommodate this the supervisor has to elevate it up the

30:23
chain all the way up to the level of this one particular individual in each Bureau who's empowered to say no and the

30:29
standard as I said is pretty high to to say no so you know now there's a a

30:35
mechanism in place before if the supervisor said no what's the employee supposed to do now there's a whole process for how

30:43
these things get adjudicated and as a result people have uh have the opportunity to express themselves in the

30:50
workplace this way whether it's taking days off for the high holy days or um

30:57
you know if you if you want to claim that you shouldn't be forced to take a vaccine because of your faith uh your

31:03
your personal faith commitments there's a way to to deal with that it it's interesting as you're

Planning For The Future

31:10
talking one of the things that I I keep noticing is that a lot of what you've

31:15
been involved in and seen work is things that are going to last well beyond you you know it's not just the shortterm

31:22
stuff um you might not be able to speak on this at all and that's okay we can go a different direction but you started on

31:28
the China desk and and often the public uh we Americans often hear about the

31:35
hundredy year plan that China talks about and in America you don't really hear about planning for the long term

31:42
you just hear about quick fix or planning for the short term or just the next thing what's

31:47
the next step and that's it and that's almost become a good thing just take the next step and don't really think about the future um what do you what advice

31:55
would you give people on all of this stuff from the from cool initiatives that you've been able to help start at

32:01
the state department to how the government treats longevity what advice would you give to people about really

32:07
planning out what their future could look like individually for their families for their companies how should they approach that

32:14
I I I don't I don't know how they should approach it for their lives I'll tell you how I do it for mine okay uh and the advice that I give oftentimes to to new

32:23
uh or prospective employees to the state department or to government generally um

32:28
have a plan always have a plan maybe your plan is uh one year out five years out 10 years out something like that

32:35
have a plan but also build into your plan a certain degree of flexibility uh as they say in the

32:41
military have a plan but know that five minutes into the war the plan's going to change and so you have to have a certain

32:48
degree of flexibility there uh now from my perspective from my from my faith perspective um I have a plan but I know

32:55
that God's going to intervene and I would rather follow his plan than mine

33:00
um and and Jonah is the prime example of why that's the case so you know Jonah

33:06
didn't want to go to Nineveh instead he went he took a boat out to japa and and

33:12
the Lord said no no um I really did want you to go to Nineveh and he sent this great fish to swallow Jonah and spit him

33:18
up on the shore where he was supposed to go so you can go there the easy way or you can go there the hard way but you're

33:24
going to go there and so I would I'd like to avoid the big fish uh um route to getting to

33:30
where I think God wants me to go and so I I I would never have expected to be

33:36
where I am at this point in my career but it's much uh much thanks to having

33:41
that that flexibility in my plan for opportunities that came up um in my

33:47
current job uh I so four years ago I was in a completely different Bureau than I

33:53
am now and there was a political appointee who heard about me working in the department and he said uh uh I think

34:02
I'd like to have you working for me in in my new role you have a lot of experience in the department and I'm a

34:08
brand new political appointee I may be the the the guy who's going to have to bear the responsibility for the

34:14
decisions but it would help me to have somebody who's got experience in the building advising me and so I wasn't

34:21
expecting that I hadn't sought that but this was an opportunity that came up and

34:27
um and so that that's the direction that I went and that's how I ended up where I am when the change of administration

34:32
came he left but I stayed and so that's why I'm still there and you know I I

34:38
could if you had asked me when I started in the department if this was where I hoped to end up one day I didn't know

34:45
that this position existed so there you have it it is interesting e even probably when when

Being Involved In Global Issues and Problems

34:51
you started at the state department you probably still didn't know the position even existed because there were there's so many facets uh some of the things

34:58
that I've heard over the years that are interesting to me about the state department are are things how the state

35:04
department gets involved in uh everything from um like current Wars

35:11
going on how how America is affected by that all the way to political atrocities

35:16
that happen and how America has to get involved in things that maybe they don't want to get involved in um and all kinds

35:23
of things and I've always thought it was such a fascinating system because America and up now kind of to your point

35:29
how it used to be it ends at The Waters Edge now America's very involved in all

35:34
kinds of global issues all kinds of global issues uh so you know John Kerrey working on global climate change well he

35:41
was wearing a state department hat to do that function um uh I suspect your your

35:49
uh listeners and viewers are aware of the FBI's most wanted list well the FBI

35:55
has a most wanted list but the state department has four four of these lists wow um then they're for different

36:01
functions so the uh there's one for uh

36:07
International drug cartels and so we offer rewards for information that leads to the capture of people who are

36:12
involved in in in drug running we have one for all other organized crime

36:18
syndicates uh we have one the biggest one of all big bigger than the other three combined is the rewards for

36:25
justice program and it was initially focused on terrorism and looking for terrorists that reward program has been

36:32
expanded in recent years it now covers things like sanctions busting it covers

36:38
um cyber crime um it covers uh hostage taking and

36:44
other forms of illegal detention uh and you know people don't

36:49
realize that the state department is involved in all of those other areas uh the fourth one is for those who commit

36:56
atrocities as you mentioned earlier so crimes against humanity genocide war crimes um there's over 100,000

37:02
documented war crimes that have taken place in Ukraine for example how are how is the state

37:08
department going to try to make sure that these incidents don't go uh don't

37:15
occur with impunity how are we going to make sure because if if the if worldwide

37:22
war crimes can occur for example with impunity what's to stop some other

37:28
warmongering dictator from engaging in those same kinds of activities if you want to prevent those kinds of things

37:35
from happening then you need to have mechanisms available to you to do something about it to as a deterrent if

37:42
nothing else and so you know working on on those kinds of issues is important

37:48
and to a certain degree this is a demonstration of American leadership uh servant leadership even uh

37:56
around the world we don't necessarily benefit um the United States itself

38:02
doesn't necessarily benefit by preventing war crimes and crimes against humanity but we certainly are helping uh

38:09
citizens of other countries to do that and in the long run looking out for their interests can also help us in

38:16
looking out for our own and so you know we have to think in those kinds of terms as well it's not uh it's not just the

38:25
American immediate benefit but longterm how is this going to

38:30
benefit us and create a climate internationally where for instance we

38:36
can do business with countries countries that are failed states countries that are um uh unstable don't make great

38:45
markets and so to the extent that we can help to bring stability internationally that that uh comes back

38:53
to benefit us too so when when a war crime happens or human rights violation

Involvement in Human Rights Violation Situations

38:59
happens and the state department gets involved um it seems like some some of

39:05
those are far stretched to even get involved in because they're over there wherever there is um and that the state

39:11
department would have no jurisdic no jurisdiction it would seem like the only thing that America could maybe do is

39:18
tariffs or something to to make the economy harder that might be one thing are there other things that they can

39:24
actually do to help cause change in some of those situ where there are just it's mass chaos yeah there's

39:32
well there's a number of different tools out there and I don't want to give away all of them but there are things that we

39:37
can do like like imposing sanctions like imposing visa restrictions um we can

39:43
work with governments that may have jurisdiction to help them to build

39:48
capacity to try those cases we can work with them to pass laws that will take

39:55
into account the kinds of issues that a court trying those cases might have to

40:01
face so for example um what do you do if you need to do Battlefield evidence

40:08
collection uh what do you do if the evidence that you collect is digital in nature what does chain of custody look

40:15
like in those situations if you watched any police dramas on television you know chain of custody for the evidence is

40:21
important and if the evidence could have been tampered with then the Court's not going to find it reliable and it'll get

40:27
thrown out well okay how do you fix that problem when you're dealing with Battlefield evidence collection or the

40:34
evidence is digital and you need to make sure that you can demonstrate to the court that it hasn't been manipulated in

40:40
some way um from the time that it was collected to the time that it's presented in court what do you do if

40:47
you're a judge or a prosecutor and you need to um prove the case what does that

40:53
mean to prove a case involving genocide crimes against ity or or um war crimes U

41:01
what are the elements of those kinds of crimes you need to train the judges and

41:06
the prosecutors on on how to present cases like that and once you've helped these countries develop the capacity

41:13
then they're equipped to prosecute those cases themselves or um there are

41:21
some there are some countries that will want to have to have jurisdiction over

41:27
over atrocities that may have happened outside their country but the perpetrator may be in their own country or the victim may have been a citizen of

41:34
their country and so they want to be able to assert jurisdiction even though the actual atrocity occurred someplace

41:40
else and so you know these kinds of laws their their their Parliament or their

41:45
Congress is going to have to pass a law to authorize that and so we can help

41:51
countries to think about what they want their legal system to look like as you

41:56
know in relation to these kinds of cases not every country has that automatically

42:01
uh there's not necessarily International laws that apply to these things and you've got to work with them to help them build the capacity to do that wow

42:08
what's one thing that you think people would think is really cool about the state department that they might not

Unique Aspects/History Of The State Department

42:14
know oh um lots of interesting things um one of the things that fascinates me is

42:20
that the state department Once Upon a Time was the National Archive so the the Constitution the Declaration of

42:26
Independence those those belonged to the state department Once Upon a Time the state department also uh included the

42:32
patent office can you imagine today if the secretary of state had to sign every patent that's issued uh in the United

42:39
States um but all of that intellectual property Once Upon a Time was uh was a

42:45
function that belonged to the state department I find that history fascinating

42:50
um in Washington DC geographically speaking the state department is located

42:56
in a part of the city called Foggy Bottom uh it was at the founding of the

43:02
national government in Washington DC swamp land it's where it's where the

43:07
nobody wanted to live it was MOS mosquito infested swamp land and so that's where they put the breweries in

43:14
Washington DC there used to be a micr brew in Washington called Foggy Bottom beer and that's why it's called that the

43:20
actual land the state department sits on was a brewery once upon a time because

43:25
it's right next to where the pic pic River came so there was fresh water but it was in swamp infest swamp

43:34
mosquito infested swamp land and nobody wanted to live there breweries stink to high heaven and so they put the

43:40
breweries where nobody wanted to live but they had access to the fresh water and that's Foggy Bottom for you now

43:46
people today might say that well Foggy Bottom is still aptly named for for its own reasons but uh I will skirt past

43:54
that one diplomatically as I want to do as a state department employee but I

43:59
always get a kick out of the fact that the state department sits on what used to be a brewery Once Upon a Time uh it

44:05
also used to be the war department uh the building that the state department has prior to it being

44:12
the state department was the war department World War II was happening at the time they realized that it wasn't

44:18
big enough to house the Department of Defense DOD moved to the Pentagon and

44:23
the state department moved into that building it now covers two full City blocks um and I love to give tours of

44:30
the of the building so if you're ever out in DC and you want to stop by I'm happy to give you a tour of the of the state department and tell you about some

44:36
of the history that we' got there yeah well and you Rec you just told me before too that the seal is still oh yeah the

44:43
Great Seal of the United States so the state department it's one of the few functions that's not specifically Foreign Affairs related that the state

44:50
department still has a responsibility for is it's The Keeper of the Great Seal of the United States so if you're an

44:55
ambassador and you you get your certificate from the the president designating you as an ambassador to

45:01
another country you're going to get the certificate embossed with the Seal of the Great Seal of United States it's

45:06
pretty cool that is super cool well I want to hit you with 10 rapid fire questions okay where you just say the

10 Rapid-Fire Questions

45:13
first thing that comes to your mind and there's no right or wrong answer all right uh we'll see who who's the first person you think

45:21
of when I say servant leadership oh uh from the state department or just in general anybody

45:29
well obviously from my faith perspective it would be Jesus Christ I mean there there's there's nobody that matches that

45:35
I I think that's that's an easy one all right um in terms of the state department um Colin Powell did an

45:43
amazing job as a servant leader I think uh in my tenure if I were to look at the secretaries wow five words that most

45:50
describe yourself pmic um passionate I'm trying to think of all PW that make it a

45:57
little more more difficult um philosophical how's that uh that's

46:02
another p word um two more I don't know two

46:11
more it have to be five that's okay three is great we'll go with that what about favorite author or book oo um I'm

46:21
going to I'm going to pass over the Bible that's too easy okay um

46:29
I think I get a lot so I was a political science and philosophy double major in

46:35
college and people don't look at me a little quizzically when I say this but

46:41
the philosophy background has helped me immensely in in thinking through what I

46:48
do how I do it big picture and it's been said that all philosophy is a response to Socrates and

46:56
I think there's a lot of truth in that um but the a lot of

47:02
philosophy is simply uh a modern iteration of thoughts

47:08
that have been previously thought maybe the the conclusions are different but

47:13
the issues have remained fairly consistent over the centuries and

47:19
Millennia uh one of the stories that I I

47:24
look back on and say you know I see those threads those those those um lines

47:32
of thought uh even today goes back to Plato's allegory of the cave and um if

47:40
you've never read philosophy before that might be a good place to start is reading it's not very long and it's very

47:47
interesting and if you as you read it think about the analogies that we might

47:53
encounter in in Modern Life today and how we think about things uh I think

47:59
people might draw a lot of benefit from from thinking through what Plato is talking about in that in that story wow

48:07
favorite movie oh I gotta say entertainment wise I do

48:13
enjoy the original Star Wars Trilogy all right um yeah favorite Hunt for Red

48:18
October is another one I I I I've it's been a while but once upon a time I

48:23
could quote you most lines from that movie favorite food uh my mother's Spano

48:31
Copita oh I don't even know what that is so you probably had the this this the filo with the spinach pie in a Greek you

48:37
go to a Greek restaurant they've got spinach and cheese filling in a filo dough that's

48:43
spanakopita and uh my mother is fantastic at making that wow favorite

48:48
thing to do in your free time I I thoroughly enjoy listening to

48:54
podcasts I do um I'm adding this one to my repertoire love it but I learn an

49:00
awful lot from from listening to podcasts and I will listen to them when I'm in the shower in the morning when I

49:07
am driving to go pick up my kids from school I've always got some some podcast on tap ready to go I've got a long list

49:15
um I probably have well I've got bookshelves full of books waiting for me to retire but I don't have the time to do them to read them but the podcasts I

49:23
can be doing all kinds of other things while I'm listening so whether I'm out joging in or walking walking the dog

49:29
I've always got a podcast on on tap all right surprising fact about

49:38
you surprising fact I shook hands with Nelson Mandela once wow how's that not

49:44
many people know that that I've ever done that but that was a pretty cool thing for me that would be super cool uh

49:50
where's your favorite place you've ever been oh Sydney Australia cool what a

49:55
what a wonderful uh city that is I got to go during the 2000 Olympics to Sydney

50:03
and um if I were to retire to some city outside the United States that' probably be at the top of my list is there

50:09
somewhere you want to go that you haven't been I have not been to India I would

50:14
love to go to India that would be uh one place on my bucket list that I've I've

50:20
not not been to yet all right and finally what's the best advice you've ever gotten huh

50:29
don't take yourself so seriously okay that's that's probably up there

50:35
um there was a there was a pastor here in weaton years ago who wrote a book

50:40
called Uncle Ben's quotebook and my favorite quote in there is a great piece of advice it said uh you should learn

50:47
from other people's mistakes because there's not enough time in your lifetime to make them all I think that's great advice wow well

Closing

50:54
thank you for taking the time to be here and share a little bit with our audience I really appreciate it sure like I said

51:00
I'm happy to do it this is uh this has been a lot of fun thank you appreciate the invitation thank you for listening to this episode of the servant

51:07
leadership podcast if you enjoyed what you heard please give it a thumbs up and leave a comment below don't forget to

51:14
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