Author Archive | Ven Suresh

Gail Goodridge, 60, the manager of HIV/AIDS and women’s health programs at FHI 360, a nonprofit international development organization, died June 18 at Capital Caring’s Halquist Memorial Inpatient Center in Arlington County. She had cancer, said her sister Lori Stanley. Mrs. Goodridge, an Arlington resident, had worked at the Washington office of FHI 360 for the past two decades. She previously worked for five years at the U.S. Agency for International Development on projects related to women’s health and independence, micro-loans and population studies. She traveled to Nairobi as director of an HIV/AIDS program in East and Central Africa. Gail Ann Washchuck was born in Detroit. She received a bachelor’s degree in English and mass communications from Arizona State University in 1973 and a master’s degree in future studies from the University of Houston in 1978. She was a member of St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Arlington, where she organized and participated in outreach programs in Africa, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. She also volunteered with the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, Virginians Organized for Interfaith Community Engagement and Social Action Linking Together, a Catholic advocacy group in Arlington. Her husband of 18 years, Glyne Goodridge, died in 2001. Survivors include four stepdaughters, Elizabeth Malouin of Midhurst.

Leonel Tristan Pizarro passed away peacefully on July 10, 2012 in Woodbridge, VA from complications related to Alzheimer’s disease. Leo was born September 25, 1944 in Pueblo Hundido, Chile, to Carmen and Tristan Pizarro. He and his sister, Magda, grew up in a loving home and treasured their time riding on trains with their father Tristan, who was a railroad telephone engineer. Leo married Sue Anne Ipsen on May 20, 1972 in Clayton, CA. Leo graduated from the University of the Pacific in California where he played soccer, and later received an MBA from the Thunderbird School of International Management. He spent wonderful years with his family living overseas and working at remote construction sites as an administrator. He embraced the gypsy lifestyle, working all over Central and South America before joining the U.S. Agency for International Development. The rest of his career was spent stationed at US Embassies in Guatemala, Honduras, Egypt, El Salvador, Senegal, and Israel working on development projects with some of the neediest people in the world. People who worked for Leo loved him. He was a passionate, generous, and loving man. If there was a party, he was there, dancing up a storm and leading the charge. He adopted young single people into his family at every post, giving them a home, an advisor, and a beer. He always kept change in his pockets and car doors for anyone who asked for it, and would raid his house for items to give away. Those who knew him best enjoyed his colorful personality. His stubbornness challenged the most worthy opponents and he often bumped heads with his supervisors. He was happiest on an adventure whether it was deep sea fishing in the Red Sea, driving and branding cattle in the Mosquito Coast in Honduras, or motoring around the Sahara in a Land Cruiser in his endless search for pretty rocks to add to his several hundred pound collection. Leo’s proudest achievement was his family, and he let them all know it. He leaves behind his wife, Sue, who joined him on his adventures for so many years. He will be remembered by his four children: Fernando, Lisa, Sandra, and Nicole, and his first granddaughter, Alexis Manali. A very special mention must be made of Maria Fe Saavedra, an important member of the Pizarro family who dedicated herself to Leo’s care in his last years, giving comfort and love.

A U.S. government aid worker with ties to the Washington area was killed in a suicide bombing Wednesday in Afghanistan, the State Department said. Ragaei Abdelfattah — a former master planner for Prince George’s County who had come from Egypt and fallen in love with the United States — was killed in the eastern Konar province. Three coalition service members and an Afghan civilian were also killed in the attack, and a State Department diplomat was injured. Abdelfattah, 43, was on his second voluntary tour as a Foreign Service officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development, a job that took him to eastern Afghanistan to partner with local officials to establish schools and health clinics and to deliver electricity. “He felt like he was doing rewarding development work,” Abdelfattah’s wife, Angela Ruppe, said in an interview. “He spoke to me many times about the relationships he was building. It was fulfilling.” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton condemned the attack in a statement and praised Abdelfattah’s work as “an example of the highest standards of service.” Abdelfattah was born in Giza and grew up in Cairo, where he studied architecture at Ain Shams University. He worked in urban planning and ecotourism development in Egypt and led a project for the U.N. Development Program before arriving in America shortly before Sept. 11, 2001. “He loved the bigness of it,” said Ted Koebel, an urban affairs and planning professor at Virginia Tech, where Abdelfattah spent part of the past decade pursuing a PhD. “I remember him saying he had a sense that the United States was the center of the world and that’s what he wanted to be a part of,” Koebel said. He toured the Mall, visited Disneyland with his two sons — now teenagers, according to a statement from USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah — and otherwise embraced Americana and America, becoming a naturalized citizen several years ago. “We had trips around the state where Ragaei would just want to stop at somebody’s roadside pie restaurant outside of Harrisonburg [ Va.] or on [Route] 460, coming back through the peanut farm area,” Koebel said. “He just loved everything about the United States.” That included bad chain restaurants and classic suburbia, his wife said. “I used to joke with him that he was even more American than I was.” Abdelfattah never completed his PhD at Virginia Tech. (“Expected in 2013/4,” his résumé says.) Instead, he moved to the Washington area and went to work in Prince George’s to provide for his family. He spent five years with the Maryland-National Capital Parks and Planning Commission. He became a supervisor and was regarded as a rising star. County Planning Director Fern Piret on Thursday lamented “the loss of someone with so much potential.” Ivy Lewis, a division chief with the planning commission, recalled Abdelfattah as “very smart, very passionate about community development, very knowledgeable.” There was also this, she said: “He was the co-worker who would take other co-workers out to lunch just to stay in touch and get to know them better. He was really a people person who took time to get to know his co-workers.” He even met his second wife at the commission, after his first marriage ended in divorce. Colleagues thought Abdelfattah and Ruppe were just carpooling partners, driving in together from Annapolis. Then one day in 2009, they announced to the office that they had married. He had proposed by calling her into his office, showing her three dates on his Outlook calendar and telling her to pick one for their wedding. Abdelfattah, who had worked as a contractor with USAID officials in Egypt, began to talk seriously about working with the agency again. He liked the international development mission, Ruppe said. He put in for a job and was offered Afghanistan. “It’s pretty much where you have to go before you move on to other assignments,” Ruppe said. They both had safety concerns — “of course we did,” she said — but she left the decision to her husband. And he decided to go and then to go again. From afar, he followed all the news at his old office, sending emails to congratulate former colleagues on their new appointments. He told people here that he was planning to take the American Institute of Certified Planners exam in November. He had just taken a two-week vacation with Ruppe and told friends how “romantic and wonderful” it was. He sent travel photos and birthday greetings and gifts. And in December, when a Virginia Tech police officer was fatally shot on campus, he e-mailed his old professor and friend. “He said, ‘Be safe,’ ” Koebel recalled. “I said, ‘Geez, Ragaei, back atcha.’ He was obviously working in a dangerous part of the world. You obviously knew something bad could happen. You just hoped it never did.”

Donald D. Cohen, 77, a retired Foreign Service officer who later led international development organizations, died July 29 at the Washington Home hospice in the District. He had complications from pulmonary disease, his wife, Jeanne Kersting Cohen, said. Mr. Cohen began his career in 1962 with the U.S. Agency for International Development. He served as a program officer in Korea and Turkey in the 1960s and 1970s. As USAID mission director in Thailand from 1978 to 1982, Mr. Cohen helped set up a refu­gee camp for Cambodians fleeing strife in their country. From 1982 to 1988, he was a member of the State Department’s policy planning office and also served as the director of the Office of Economic Analysis. In 1988, Mr. Cohen became chief executive of Volunteers for Overseas Cooperative Assistance (VOCA), a non-governmental organization that provided volunteers and services for rural and economic development. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, VOCA received USAID grants to provide agricultural and economic assistance to many countries in the old Soviet bloc. Mr. Cohen visited more than a dozen nations that were adjusting to life after communism. “VOCA was the first U.S. entity in these countries,” said Don Moores, who worked with Mr. Cohen at the time and is now an immigration lawyer in Bethesda. “He literally was the first person representing the United States to set foot in these places in the former ‘Evil Empire.’ ” For his work in Eastern Europe, Mr. Cohen received the presidential End Hunger Award from George H.W. Bush in 1989. Mr. Cohen left VOCA in the late 1990s, when it merged with another organization. He later served as managing director of the Washington office of Plan USA, an international humanitarian group providing services for children. He retired in 2007. Donald David Cohen was born May 9, 1935, in Lowell, Mass. After serving in the Army in the mid-1950s, he graduated from the University of Florida in 1962. He was a research fellow in international studies at Harvard University in 1972-73. He participated in civil rights marches in the 1960s, including the 1963 March on Washington, and established a bed-and-breakfast program to house people attending the “Resurrection City” encampment on the Mall in 1968. Mr. Cohen lived in Chevy Chase for many years before moving to the District. His marriage to Bettina Callaway ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife of 35 years, Jeanne Kersting Cohen of Washington; a daughter from his first marriage, Tamara Cohen Preiss of Arlington County; two children from his second marriage, Allison Cohen and Christopher Cohen, both of Washington; and two grandchildren.

Daniel J. Mackell, Sr., 85, a retired career Foreign Service Officer, died peacefully on August 22, 2012 at Collingswood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rockville, Maryland. Mr. Mackell was born on January 9, 1927 in Yeadon, PA. He served his country in the US Army during WWII, stationed on Okinawa. Upon his return, he attended VPI on the GI Bill, and graduated from Villanova University with a degree in Chemical Engineering. Mr. Mackell’s lengthy and varied career began as a consultant for Pennsalt, followed by management positions with Metropolitan Life Insurance, Klein and Saks Management Consultants, and Esso. In 1969, Mr. Mackell joined the Foreign Service as an Economic and Development Loan Officer for USAID, and traveled with his family to posts in Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, and Jamaica. Additionally, Mr. Mackell traveled extensively throughout the Middle East, Latin America, Europe and Asia. Mr. Mackell was predeceased by his wife Joan C. Mackell, in 2000. He was a loving, attentive and devoted father, Pop-Pop and great-grandfather to his large family. Survivors include seven children, Marianne T. O’Brien (Jack) of Monroe, NC, Kathleen A. Horner (Michael) of Leesburg, VA, Thomas P. Mackell (Margaret) of Richmond, VA, Daniel J. Mackell, Jr. of Greenwich, CT, Joan C. Alden (Ed) of Roswell, GA, Christine X. Rocha (Charles) of Landenberg, PA, and Paul R. Mackell (Lucia) of Chevy Chase, MD; 20 grandchildren, and 10 great-grandchildren. Mass will be at 11 a.m. on Friday, September 7, 2012 at The Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Washington, DC. Interment will be private. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests a donation to a charity of your choice .

Cassy Zak, age 100, died peacefully at the home she shared with her daughter, retired FSO Marilyn Zak, in Alexandria, VA. She was under the care of Capital Caring, a hospice service, and died of Alzheimer’s. Mrs. Zak was born April 20, 1912 in Chicago, Il. After becoming a Register Nurse, she worked at Cook County Hospital. When asked who was her most famous patient, she would smile and say “Al Capone. He was very good to the nurses and gave out $20 bills and chocolates to us.” Quite something during the Depression. In 1937 she married Robert A Zak, and in 1947 would move with her husband and two children, Robert T and Marilyn, to Everett Washington where she worked for more than 30 years as a nurse at Providence Hospital. Mrs. Zak helped establish the nurses association at the hospital, was active in civil defense activities and the guild of her church. When Marilyn first joined USAID in 1966, Cassy and her husband were devoted parents to their traveling daughter. They first visited her in Asuncion Paraguay. After the death of her husband in 1988, Mrs. Zak would visit her daughter who was then Deputy Director in Kingston, Jamaica for a month each year at Christmas to enjoy tropical weather and to dance the soca until early hours of the morning. When Marilyn was Mission Director in the Dominican Republic, she added the merengue and salsa to her dancing. Before the end of Marilyn’s tour, Cassy would come to live with her daughter. Mrs. Zak accompanied her daughter during her tour as Mission Director in Managua, Nicaragua from 1998 to 2002. Cassy was a lively participant in diplomatic life, USAID activities, and helped the victims of Hurricane Mitch. Mrs. Zak would celebrate her 90th birthday in Managua at home with with pink balloons everywhere and a Mariachi band. In June 2002 Cassy returned to the US to live with her daughter before Marilyn’s retirement in 2003. Cassy continued her love of dancing, and her daughter’s 95th birthday present to her was 2 one hour dance lessons with a very good looking Brazilian dance instructor, named Fabio, at the local dance studio. During her illness, Cassy never lost her sweetness or kindness to others. Cassy was buried July 13th next to her husband and sister in Everett Washington. Survivors include her daughter, a son and daughter-in-law in Vancouver WA, 2 grandsons, and 2 great grandchildren.

Barbara Linné Kroll Pillsbury Milne, Ph.D. age 69 of Malibu, CA, Washington, DC, and a citizen of the world, passed away on September 27, 2012, surrounded by her family. Born and raised in Bemidji, MN, Barbara graduated from Bemidji High School, attended the University of Minnesota receiving a B.S. in home economics with journalism minor, earned a M.A. in applied linguistics from Columbia University Teachers College and a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Columbia University where she studied with renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead. Her doctoral dissertation on Muslim Chinese was a pioneering study that remains the basis for the work of later scholars in the field. Barbara learned to speak fluent Chinese and combined that skill with her knowledge of Muslim societies and cultures, gleaned from her days at the American University in Cairo. She continued to contribute to the world of scholarship through numerous research papers and conference presentations as well as mentoring students seeking to follow her in the complex issues she so deftly maneuvered. Her career in cultural and medical anthropology spanned the globe, taking her to 100 countries, where she worked tirelessly to make the world a better place, through groundbreaking research and policy recommendations on women’s health and family planning issues in developing countries. Barbara left a profound contribution as a visionary leader in the areas of international development, reproductive and sexual health, HIV/AIDS education, child survival, and global gender issues. Never one to be left out of a conversation, she learned thirteen languages, with a particular love for Chinese and Swedish. Barbara has been an inspiration to young scholars by showing them an alternative career path in anthropology, aside from traditional academia. She was a pioneer in taking the theoretical and practical knowledge and skills out of the university setting and applying them to efforts to improve the welfare of people around the globe. Barbara helped found six organizations (most notably the Pacific Institute for Women’s Health) and has served on numerous boards of directors, including the American Anthropological Association, the Global Health Council, and the International Women’s Health Coalition. She held positions with many governmental and non-governmental organizations, including WHO, UNFPA, UNICEF, USAID, the World Bank, International Planned Parenthood Federation, and the Rockefeller, Hewlett, Ford, Gates and Compton foundations. Preceded in death by her father Richard Kroll, Barbara was the daughter of her beloved mother Edna (Engvall) Kroll of St. Louis Park, MN; loving mother of Heather Milne (David) Cristman of Cincinnati, OH, and Kristina Milne of New York City, NY; dear sisters Connie Kroll Skildum of Eagan, MN and Anne Kroll (Doug) Dahlen of Burnsville, MN; plus many nieces, nephews, great nieces and nephews, and countless friends and colleagues. A Celebration of Life service for family and close friends will be held at the Minnesota Humanities Center in Saint Paul, MN on Sunday, 1:00 p.m., October 7, followed by a California service for family & friends on October 13 at 10:30 am (8600 Westward Beach Road, Malibu CA). Memorials are preferred to The Molly Gingerich Fund (301-670-0994) or the SHARE Institute (http://www.theshareinstitute.org), two organizations that help young women around the globe.