Career Diplomat Speaking at Kodiak College

Jay Barrett/KMXT
Becoming a diplomat probably doesn’t come up often in career counseling sessions in rural Alaska high schools, but the U.S. Foreign Service is a small but very important branch of the United States government and is always looking for qualified personnel.

And though she is retired, and on vacation in Alaska, career diplomat Eva Groening, will be sharing some insight into the diplomatic corps at a gathering tonight at Kodiak College.

“Thinking that while in a place like Seattle there are dozens, if not hundreds of retired foreign service people. Someplace on Kodiak, we’re probably thin on the ground,” she said. “And I just thought it might be an opportune way to bring some information about the foreign service to what I gather is a fairly isolated community and may not have the opportunity to ask questions of someone who’s done it.”

Groening was in the foreign service for 32 years and was stationed in such places as Warsaw when it was shedding communism, and at America’s first embassy in Hanoi after the Vietnam War.

Groening, an immigrant from Poland, says the old image of the diplomatic corps being only for upper crust Ivy League graduates, is outdated.

“And we do want everyone. Every American citizen between 21 and 59 is eligible to take the written exam and begin the process of joining the foreign service,” she said. “So part of my impulse is to spread the word.”

Groening’s talk about the U.S. Diplomatic Corps will be tonight (Friday) at 6 p.m. in Kodiak College.