Archive | 2018

Jack I. Stone, an internationally noted economist who focused on economic development challenges and trade issues and who was instrumental in launching the concept of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) as a category deserving special attention, died on November 1, 2018 after a long illness. He was 98.

In a career that spanned seven decades, Mr. Stone focused on the unique economic development challenges faced by countries with geographic or political disadvantages and on ways to improve their prospects through better trade terms and improved transport access to major markets and trading hubs. Mr. Stone is considered by many as the “father” of the least developed countries concept which helped focus special attention on the often unique challenges faced by the poorest countries on the planet. First as director of Research at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva in the 1970s and later as Director of UNCTAD’s Special Program on Least Developed, Land-Locked and Island Developing Countries, Mr. Stone was instrumental in overcoming obstacles to and in developing political support for the Least Developed Countries concept. At the time, there was opposition to the LDC designation from a number of larger and better off developing countries who were concerned the new designation would weaken international support for their own development.

Mr. Stone kept a focus on the unique challenges faced by the world’s LDCs and built support for additional measures to assist these countries by using his position to champion rigorous analytical research, field studies and expert group reports that clearly laid out the unique impediments to growth often shared by the poorest of developing countries. While the concept of LDCs became firmly established, Mr. Stone often weighed in with his view that the category should focus on countries with solvable trade, transport and geographic challenges rather than domestic political shortcomings which could cause an otherwise relatively wealthy nation to qualify for the added attention the category provided. He also expressed concerns that the category might become too broad to be truly meaningful although he recognized the inherent political nature of the category and the need for critical mass to generate support for the category and to give it political weight.

Born in St. Cloud Minnesota on September 9, 1920, Mr. Stone’s early years coincided with the Great depression which helped fuel his interest in economic issues and his family was forced by economic necessity to move first to Seattle, where he spent most of his formative years, and then to Kansas City. Mr. Stone received an A.B. degree in 1941 from the University of Chicago where he majored in Political Science. There he decided that most political issues were grounded in economic challenges and focused increasingly on economics in graduate studies he began at the University of Chicago. In 1946, Mr. Stone joined the post war U.S. Military Government in Germany as an Economist and Statistician for the High Commission and Marshall Plan Agency where he worked for eight years. His time there, including witnessing the Berlin Airlift first hand, gave him an early insight into practical challenges in development economics. Mr. Stone returned to the US in 1954 and enrolled in the Graduate School of Public Administration at Harvard University as a mid-career Littauer Fellow. He then studied at the Department of Economics at Harvard, completing all requirements for a Ph.D. in economics except for his thesis.

In 1963 Mr. Stone returned to government service at the State Department as a Senior Economist and Deputy Chief of the Economic Program Division of the Office of Policy Planning at the US Agency for International Development. In 1966, Mr. Stone moved to Paris to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development as Head of the Financial Policies Division of the Development Assistance Committee. There he helped negotiate a revised agreement on terms of aid and worked on Indonesian debt rescheduling agreements. In 1970, Mr.

Mr. Stone was a life-long learner often able to bond with people of varied interests with detailed knowledge of their fields. His broad interests coupled with an ability to see problems from a number of angles likely contributed to his success. Maintaining meaningful friendships across a wide variety of age groups also enabled him to remain professionally active well into his later years.. Stone is survived by his son, Daniel Walter Stone, and two grandsons, Jacob Rafael Stone and Cody Juan Stone. Services were held in Annapolis, MD. Mr. Stone is survived by his son, Daniel Walter Stone, and two grandsons, Jacob Rafael Stone and Cody Juan Stone. Services were held in Annapolis, MD.

John William Koehring , 83, passed away on Sunday, September 16, 2018 in Virginia Beach, after several months of declining health. He was born in Syracuse, NY on November 13, 1934 , the son of Ralph William Koehring and Mary Imogene Prince. He spent his boyhood in Dewitt, NY, attending Moses DeWitt elementary school and high school in Fayetteville, NY where he played football and basketball. During those years he was an enthusiastic Cub Scout and Boy Scout, earning the rank of Eagle Scout and spending a summer at the Philmont Ranch in the southwest. It was during those adventurous scouting years that he developed his life long love of the woods, mountains, and camping. After graduating from high school in 1952 he entered Dartmouth College to graduate in the class of 1956. He played football and rugby at Dartmouth. He lived two years at Corey Ford’s house. Corey Ford established the Dartmouth Rugby Club, one of the first rugby clubs in the United States. He was also a fraternity member of Delta Kappa Epsilon. In addition to academics and sports, he worked at the Hanover Inn, where he learned the life skill of selecting and cutting meat.

While at Dartmouth, he was NROTC, and after graduating, worked at the Naval Observatory in DC, before transferring to deep sea diving in every major naval theatre of the world. He spent four years in the Navy before entering into foreign service training in preparation for a life of service with the Agency for International Development in sub-saharan Africa. Over the span of 45 years, he served in the Ivory Coast, the Congo-Brazzaville, Cameroon, Kenya, and the Sudan. Our father was an amazingly disciplined leader who cared deeply about his colleagues. The host government officials with whom he worked knew that they were fortunate to be dealing with a counterpart who was driven to achieve mutually desired outcomes. In 1985, he was awarded the Presidential Meritorious Service Award. He retired as a Career minister and a distinguished career diplomat. In retirement, he enjoyed a more tranquil life of fishing and bonfires in the Adirondacks and surf fishing on the Outer Banks.

He is survived by his wife Elizabeth Bready Koehring, his eldest son Joseph P. Koehring, his second born son John Fritz Koehring, his youngest son Ralph Vincent Koehring, who continues a family tradition of serving overseas as a foreign service officer, his loving sister, Gretchen Strong of Southwest Harbor, Maine, and six grandchildren: Caleb, Jacob, Kazimir, Josephine, Louisa, and Gideon.

Loving, devoted, compassionate, and adventurous, Paul Richard Deuster was guided by a strong moral compass to do what was good and right in the world. On November 20th, at the age of 76, he peacefully passed away in his favorite room at home. He will be deeply missed by his family –his true love of 50 years and their two daughters, sons-in-law and grandchildren, as well as his sister, brother and brother-in-law.

Paul’s journey began in Oklahoma where he was born and in Racine where he was raised. He was on the debate team at his high school, St. Catherine, then graduated with a BA in Chemistry and Mathematics from Dominican College (1965). He earned both his MA in Economics (1968) and his PhD (1971) from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Paul received a Ford Fellowship that took him on his first trip to Indonesia to conduct research for his dissertation “The Rural Consequences of Indonesian Inflation: Case Study of the Yogyakarta Region.” This trip not only launched his career as a development economist, he also met his wife. They were married in 1970 in Madison, WI.

That same year, Paul joined the faculty at Ohio University, which was one of three federally funded Language and Area Centers for Southeast Asia in the US. At Ohio University, Paul taught Principles, Intermediate Macro and Microeconomics, Economic Development, and International Trade; he developed a course on the Economics of South East Asia and served a term as Southeast Asian Studies Program Director.

Paul left Ohio University to join USAID in 1984. During his more than 20 years with USAID, Paul headed economic growth teams or offices in the Philippines, Egypt, Indonesia and Washington. He loved his work and poured both his intellect and heart into it. In his development career, Paul also worked with the World Bank, UNDP, The Asia Foundation and other consulting firms. He spent 30 years overseas.

Paul loved the discovery of travel (always doing it with respect for other cultures and an open mind to learn more), the challenge of bridge (whether playing with others or simply enjoying books on strategy), Disney films and science fiction (both as imaginary worlds to jump into) and, of course, the Green Bay Packers.

His gentle spirit and positive approach to life will be missed.

Malcolm Forbes Baldwin, 78, husband of alumna Pamela Baldwin, passed away on Monday, Nov. 12 at his home in Lovettsville, Virginia after a decade-long battle with prostate cancer.

Born April 5, 1940 in Rochester, NY, Malcolm was the son of Schuyler Forbes Baldwin and Doris Hawkins Baldwin and brother of Gordon Brewster Baldwin and Beryl Baldwin Punt, all now deceased.  He is survived by his loving wife Pamela Lane Baldwin and his children Peter Lane Baldwin of Dummerston, VT, Rebecca Baldwin Fuller of Waterford, VA and Alice Baldwin O`Keefe of Bend, OR, as well as grandchildren Malcolm, Aidan and Kyleigh Fuller and Penelope O`Keefe.

From the ages of 2-18, Malcolm attended Harley School in Rochester, an independent school where his mother taught.  He followed his father and brother in attending Haverford College, where he nurtured his lifelong interest in history.  He was also a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, choosing afterwards to apply his legal knowledge to the then-nascent field of environmental law and policy.

While working under Russell Train at the Conservation Foundation, he convened the first national conference on environmental law, and co-wrote and edited Law and the Environment, a book that helped guide the then-emerging field of environmental law.  He and his wife Pamela co-authored Onshore Planning for Offshore Oil, based on the Scottish experience with North Sea oil development.  He served as senior environmental law and policy specialist at the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) during the Carter Administration, and as Acting Chair of CEQ in the opening months of the Reagan Administration while attempting to preserve the Council`s work in the face of new leadership less enthusiastic about environmental protection.  He also chaired the board of Defenders of Wildlife in the 1980s.

In tandem with Pamela, a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), he lived in Sri Lanka from 1988 to 1993.  There he led a team fielded by the International Resources Group (IRG) in helping local officials establish national environmental laws, policies and procedures that remain in force today.  His later IRG assignments included leading development of a USAID-funded Environmental Partnership Program and establishing an Environmental Business Program.

Upon retirement in 2002, he dedicated his abundant energies and the rest of his life to growing wine grapes and raising sheep at WeatherLea Farm, and to preserving rural land and businesses in Loudoun County.  He served on the Loudoun County Rural Economic Development Council and on the boards of the Piedmont Environmental Council, the Land Trust of Virginia and Save Rural Loudoun.  He was also an active member of the Loudoun County Democratic Party and he ran unsuccessfully for County Supervisor in 2011 as a Democrat in a heavily Republican district.

Above all, Malcolm Baldwin will be remembered by family and friends the world over for his kindness, generosity of spirit and twinkle in the eye, as well as by the many people whose lives, careers and interests he touched and nurtured.

A celebration of Malcolm’s life will be held at The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick, MD on Dec. 1, 2018 at 1 p.m.  In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to a conservation fund for the preservation of family farms being established in his memory by the Land Trust of Virginia at www.landtrustva.org.

Walter Wurfel, a longtime journalist and Washington public relations executive, died suddenly on November 29, 2018, in Falls Church, VA. He was 81.

During his career, Walt served as deputy White House press secretary to President Jimmy Carter (1977-79); senior vice president/communications of the National Association of Broadcasters (1986-97), vice president/corporate communications of Gannett Co., Inc. (1979-84); press secretary to Democratic Sen. Richard Stone of Florida (1975-76); press secretary to the presidential primary campaign of Democratic Sen. Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota (1972); president/Washington, of the Ruder Finn and Rotman public relations firm; foreign editor and political editor of The St. Petersburg Times (1972-74); and as a reporter for The Washington Evening Star (1962-64). He served in the Africa Bureau of the U.S. Agency for International Development and worked for other media companies in Puerto Rico, New York City and California. He served on the boards of the National Press Foundation and the Arlington Symphony. An Eagle Scout, he served on the Boy Scouts’ National Public Relations Advisory Committee (1979-83). He also chaired the Communications Advisory Committee of the national American Red Cross. Walt also co-owned Mobjack Sailing Camp in Mathews, VA, Laurel Ridge Golf Course in Palmyra, VA, and WXGM-FM radio in Gloucester, VA.

Despite a diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease in 2005, Walt continued to enjoy many pursuits, including international travel. He was a ham radio operator (W4ZPQ) and a talented trombonist. He was a longtime member of the NOVA Band at Northern Virginia Community College’s Alexandria campus, the Falls Church City Band, the Rock Spring Winded Ensemble and other brass groups. He sailed his last boat, “Second Wind,” up the Intra-Coastal Waterway and to Long Island Sound and back. He was an active volunteer with presidential and statewide Democratic campaigns and at Rock Spring Congregational United Church of Christ.

He is survived by his wife, Sara Fitzgerald, sons Ted and Steve, daughters-in-law Missy and Gina, and grandchildren Jack, Sam and Lucy.

Alan George Swan, 75, a resident of The Orchard for the past four years, died on December 1 at Habersham Medical Center, following a heroic battle with cancer and pneumonia.

Alan was born in Buffalo, New York on May 8, 1943. He attended Colorado School of Mines in Golden, and graduated from Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, with a degree in political science. He later attended Georgetown University majoring in Latin American area studies.

Alan was a retired Foreign Service officer with USAID, Department of State. His first tour overseas was to Saigon during the war. He was accompanied by his wife and two daughters to assignments in Quito, Ecuador; Cairo, Egypt; and Monrovia, Liberia. During his thirty year career, he worked with the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance where he was widely respected for his thoughtful, fact based opinions and compassionate work for the victims of disasters. In 1996, he was awarded the Distinguished Career Service Award by the USAID Administrator.

Prior to coming to live in Clarkesville, Alan resided in Reston, Virginia and on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Alan was a friend of Bill W. for more than thirty years.

Alan was an adventurer who explored many parts of the world including Mongolia, the Congo, Kenya, Cambodia, the Shetland Islands, the Outer Hebrides, and the Falkland Islands. A fan of cruising, he and his wife sailed across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, down the Amazon to Manaus. They sailed twice around Cape Horn and to within seven hundred miles of the North Pole to Svalbard, Norway.

Alan was the son of the late Arlene Dobmeier and Bernard Swan of East Aurora, New York.

Alan is survived by his wife of more than 51 years, June, two daughters: Lizzy Johnson and her husband Dirk of Demorest; Nicole Gore and her husband Glenn of Reston, Virginia, and one grandson Jack Johnson.

Robert Halligan, of Brandermill Woods, Midlothian, Va., died on November 11, 2018, just a few days after voting in the most recent elections. As an ardent believer in the privilege and responsibility of citizenship and a devoted Democrat, he wouldn’t have missed it.

Bob was born in Huntington, N.Y. on December 1, 1934, graduated from Huntington High School in 1952. After serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean conflict in Japan and the Philippines, he returned home and graduated from C.W. Post University. He then attended the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University before joining USAID. He attended the school again, becoming a Princeton Fellow in Public and International Affairs.

Bob’s various positions with USAID took him around the world and he and his family lived in Nigeria, Thailand three different times, Vietnam and the Philippines. At the time of his retirement from the federal government as a Senior Foreign Service Officer in 1989, he was the Head of Personnel for the Agency.

Bob then worked for the National Rural Electrification Cooperative Association, heading their international program before fully retiring in 1995. The family then moved from the D.C. suburbs to the waters of Chincoteague Island, where he continued to remain engaged by working the polls, staying active in local Democratic races, volunteering at the Chincoteague Island Refuge and serving in many capacities at the Chincoteague Library. He was a voracious reader, avid lover of birds, wine, fine food, and he lived for a good “zinger.”

Left to cherish his memory are his wife of 58 years, Delina; his daughter, Chris Halligan; and son-in-law, Mike Epstein of Baltimore; his daughter, Bettina Halligan Hinckle; and son-in-law, Frank Hinckle of Richmond; four grandchildren, Brooke and Abby Epstein, Ethan and Blair Hinckle; wonderful nieces and a nephew and their families; his sister-in-law, Mimi Taylor; and incredible friends the world over. The family is especially grateful to those who cared for him at The Haven at Brandermill Woods. His was a life worth living and he will be missed terribly.*

Ulrich F. W. “Rick” Ernst, age 73, died on February 21, 2018, with his wife Dianne Tsitsos, family, and friends at his side. The cause was prostate cancer. He was born in Bückow, Germany, the son of Wilhelm Ernst and Edith (née Leptien) Ernst, and grew up in the Haselhorst section of Berlin. He studied economics at the Freie Universität, Berlin and at the Christian-Albrechts Universität Institute for World Economy, Kiel, Germany. He came to the US in 1966, receiving his Ph.D. in economics at Indiana University in 1973.

Rick was employed by Abt Associates in Cambridge, MA, and by The Urban Institute in Washington, DC, where he worked on environmental and transportation economics. He had always dreamed of applying economic analysis to international development and first had that opportunity when he went to work for Development Sciences, Inc., back in Massachusetts. DSI sent him to Morocco as Chief of Party on a USAID energy project. Rick and Dianne later joined USAID where Rick served as a Mission Economist in Sri Lanka and ROCAP in Guatemala. He loved the analytical aspects of economics most, however, and after a time returned to the private sector, working for Abt Associates again, in Bethesda, MD doing international work, and then for DAI in Bethesda, where he served as Chief Economist, as well as undertaking short-term assignments overseas.

A Rand Corporation colleague once referred to him as an “economist’s economist.” His work spanned the developing world. After long-term USAID postings in Morocco, Central America, and Sri Lanka, he found some of his most interesting assignments in Ukraine, Moldova, Ghana, Armenia, and Palestine. After retirement from DAI, he continued consulting, almost to the time of his death. His last work was developing a structural model to predict the local content of major investments in the LNG sector in Tanzania. To advance that effort, he was teaching himself to program in Python, even as he knew he was approaching the end of his life. Work on that model is being carried on by colleagues at DAI.

Throughout his career, he had the rare ability to use sophisticated mathematical and econometric tools in practical ways, making them understandable and useful to decision-makers in the US government overseas and in foreign governments. He loved mentoring young professionals in the countries where he worked and helped their careers whenever possible. In the process, he made enduring friendships.

Besides his commitment to his work, he was an avid and skilled amateur nature photographer, an enthusiastic (though less skilled) wood worker, and aspired to playing the bagpipes and clarinet. He and Dianne were advocates of liberal causes, serving together on the Mattapoisett Democratic Town Committee which Rick co-chaired. He rebuilt his ties to Germany, returning each summer to explore a different part of his re-unified homeland with a group of his former schoolmates.

In addition to his wife Dianne Tsitsos, Rick is survived by his nephew Rainer Weidlich of Berlin; sisters-in-law Mary Tsitsos of Mattapoisett and Katherine Tsitsos of Aegina, Greece; nephew Bill Tsitsos of Baltimore, MD, and many friends in the US, Germany, Ukraine, and elsewhere in Europe and Asia.

A memorial gathering was held at his home on March 3. Edward Bachman, a dear friend who married Rick and Dianne in 1980, also presided over his memorial.

MacAlan “Mac” Thompson, a quiet hero to Hmong and other post-war Indochinese refugees, died Monday at his home in Pathum Thani’s Lam Luk Ka district. He died after a lengthy battle against cancer. Thompson was 77.

After graduation from Oregon State College in 1963, Thompson served in the US Army, including a tour at the Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base. He then joined, and worked extensively with, the US Agency for International Development. His main assignments came on many key projects during the war in Laos, beside both US and Thai officials and military officers.

Like many Americans in the “secret” war against North Vietnam inside Laos, Thompson worked closely with Hmong, both villagers and soldiers of the army of Gen Vang Pao, the major thorn in the side of North Vietnamese trying to obtain supply lines to the main war in South Vietnam.

The fall of Vientiane to the Pathet Lao on Dec 2, 1975, opened a new “career” for Thompson, after he evacuated to Thailand. Working with a tiny group of “young Turk” veterans, he began lobbying and working on behalf of the Indochinese refugees – Vietnamese, Lao, Cambodian, but particularly Hmong – in order to move them to the United States. Opposition inside the US government to any large intake of war refugees ran all the way to the White House and then-president Jimmy Carter. But Thompson and his group worked for several years to meet, overcome and on occasion bypass anti-refugee regulations and sentiment.By far his greatest success was convincing the US establishment to accept tens of thousands of Hmong and beat back heavy, often racist pressure to keep the former hilltribe people out of America on grounds they supposedly could never adapt to the climate or US culture. Thompson and his small group were right, his opponents right to the top of government, wrong.

After the refugee crisis ended, Thompson dedicated his work to helping the recovery of Laos, chiefly through the Thai-Lao-Cambodian Brotherhood, a tightly knit network of veterans from the conflict. In his last internet communication before his death, Thompson sent out an email detailing the success of many Hmong-Americans elected to high political positions in the US mid-term voting in November.

CWT Hagelman III (Bill) passed away on December 28, 2018 following an almost three year battle with cancer.  After serving with the Peace Corps in Zaire and getting his Master’s at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, Bill worked for and with USAID for more than 30 years.  Sometimes he was a contractor, sometimes a Foreign Service Officer and finally sometimes a Civil Servant.   In these various employment venues, he served as Project Design Officer in Burundi, as well as Food for Peace Officer in Angola, Mozambique, South Sudan and in various other African countries.  Finally, Bill worked in various positions in USAID/Washington both in the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance and the Bureau for Africa.

While much of his work focused on food security, Bill always worked not only to synchronize multiple USAID funding streams but also with USAID partners to develop and implement programs that would have the best, most viable impact possible despite the dynamic nature of USAID’s work.

Bill retired from USAID in 2016 and moved to his beloved Galveston, Texas where he enjoyed spending time with his family, hanging out at the beach and creating a home he loved.  He hosted a wide array of family and friends but also continued to travel to spend even more time with friends and family all over the United States and the world.   We will all miss him.