Name:<\/strong> Lori Balbi<\/p>\n

Program:<\/strong> Ford Scholar, class of 1995<\/p>\n

Undergraduate school:<\/strong> Lewis & Clark College<\/p>\n

Hometown:<\/strong> Portland, Oregon<\/p>\n

I lived and worked overseas for seventeen years while working as a foreign service officer with the U.S. Department of State until my recent retirement. I took French all through high school and was an exchange student one summer.\u00a0 After that I was hooked.\u00a0 I knew my career would lead me overseas.<\/p>\n

Living outside the U.S. is much different than being a tourist.\u00a0 Understanding the nuances of a culture takes time, willingness and openness.\u00a0 To live abroad you must be flexible and adaptable and most importantly not compare countries to the U.S.<\/p>\n

Never think you can\u2019t do something or that you are too old for a change.\u00a0 I started university when I was 30-years-old with a five-year-old in tow.\u00a0 I finished in four years and started my foreign service career at age 35.<\/p>\n

Life motto:\u00a0 What would you do if you knew you could not fail?<\/p>\n

Countries lived in:<\/p>\n

\n
• Turkey<\/li>\n
• Poland:\u00a0 Consular (visas) and Economics<\/li>\n
• Saudi Arabia:\u00a0 Management Officer<\/li>\n
• of State, DC:\u00a0 Office of Development Finance.\u00a0 In this position I helped coordinate our response effort to the 2004 East-Asian Tsunami.<\/li>\n
• Afghanistan:\u00a0 Commercial.\u00a0 This involved helping American businesses negotiate the Afgan bureaucracy and help Afghan businesses export to the U.S.<\/li>\n
• Vancouver, BC:\u00a0 Political and Economic Chief<\/li>\n
• Ottawa, Ontario:\u00a0 Economic Officer<\/li>\n
• Baghdad, Iraq:\u00a0 Political Military Officer coordinating with the U.S. Military departure and monitoring the Iraqi demining program the U.S. financed.<\/li>\n
• Naples, Italy:\u00a0 Political, Economic and Commercial Chief<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Name: Lori Balbi Program: Ford Scholar, class of 1995 Undergraduate school: Lewis & Clark College Hometown: Portland, Oregon I lived and worked overseas for seventeen years while working as a foreign service officer with the U.S. Department of State until my recent retirement. I took French all through high school and was an exchange student […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1101,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Balbi-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8g73C-hJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1099"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1102,"href":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099\/revisions\/1102"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}