David Lyon

I spent a total of 32 years in the Foreign Service, starting off in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1974 and retiring in 2005 as Ambassador to Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, the Kingdom of Tonga, and Tuvalu. Other overseas assignments included Brazil, Ghana, The Philippines, Thailand, China, and Australia.

I met my wife, Maureen, during my assignment to Recife, Brazil. An Army nurse during the Vietnam War, she was a Peace Corps Volunteer and staff member in Brazil. Our two children, Nathan and Jo, were born in Manila.

Since moving to California in late 2005, I have been working as a consultant specialzing in international affairs, humanitarian assistance and political-military issues; since 2010 I have been a part-time Army civilian employee. My clients have included the U.S. Army, the Marine Corps, U.S. Forces Korea, the Global Peacekeeping Operations Initiative in Mongolia, and the Department of State. I also teach the occasional class at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, the Naval Postgraduate School and the Defense Language Institute.

I have been working about three months a year, spending the rest of my time enjoying the Monterey peninsula, especially outdoor activities like golfing and hiking, with bi-annual trips to Australia to see our kids. Having generally avoided first world postings during my career, Maureen and I are enjoying discovering Europe, visiting St. Petersburg and the Baltics two years ago and getting ready for a Budapest to Munich river cruise in 2014.

Except for a severe case of writer's block while trying to write an Honors paper Junior year, I can honestly say I enjoyed just about every minute at Swarthmore. A great group of friends and classmates, of course, but also faculty members like Ray Hopkins who helped me set up an informal concentration in Latin American studies and Paul Beik who was so bothered by having 16 students sign up for his course on Russian History that he split the class in two. I think what I took with me into the Foreign Service was the awareness that two people can have profound intellectual differences without making it personal.