Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Douglas Langan can be contacted at ADLanganaaoldcom
Country of Service: Bolivia
Training Group: 29
Cities you served in: Colquiri
Arrival Year: 1967
Departure Year: 1969
Work Description:
Community Development
Bring us up to date on your life after the peace corps:
I graduated from Rutgers Law School in 1971 and was commissioned as a Foreign Service Officer later that year. With the State Department, I served as Vice Consul in Istanbul, First Secretary in Havana, Counselor of Embassy in La Paz and Deputy Chief of Mission in Lima. Washington assignments included serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in four Bureaus. I led the advance team that re-established a Foreign Service Post in Cuba in 1977, and later was responsible for opening U.S. Embassies in the newly independent countries of the former U.S.S.R., the former Czechoslovakia, and the former Yugoslavia. In my final assignment, I was Deputy Director of the Foreign Service Institute. Since retiring in 1997, I have served as consultant to the State Department's Under Secretary for Management, the Director General, the Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, the Global AIDS Coordinator and the Administrator of USAID. In 2005, I chaired a commission that reviewed the U.S. diplomatic presence in Iraq and made recommendations regarding the staffing and organization of the Embassy in Baghdad.
Any thoughts you have now looking back on peace corps days?:
It is a perfect basis for the career path I chose. My group was personally sworn in by then Director Jack Hood Vaughn. He remarked at that ceremony that one of his objectives was to populate the American diplomatic corps with returned Volunteers. I'm glad I listened.
Originally posted: October 24, 2006
