March Update: Welcome to the New Board, and upcoming events

Foreign Area Officer Association of Monterey,

It is my pleasure to introduce to you the FAOAM Board.

Chairman:  Maj. Roberto Cuevas, USMC
Vice-Chair: LCDR Rich Reyes, USN
Comptroller:  LT Jerry Tzeng, USN
DLI Rep:  LT Christina Wong, USN
FAO-CAP Coordinator: Maj. Hector Lopez, USAF
Event Coordinator (or vacant post): Maj. Andrew Sanders, USA
Communications Director / Webmaster:  vacant

It has been an honor for me and the outgoing board to serve our membership over the past six months.  The FAOAM accomplished quite a few events, including Brown Bag Lunches, Quarterly Dinners,  JFSSPP events, the Africa Film Project, planning the upcoming FAO Conference, and other events that expanded the reach of the association.  As Chairman, I would especially like to thank the other board members – Jason, Christina, Erik, Rich, Kim, Gerald, Hector, Jim and Andy – for their hard work and dedication to the FAOAM.

Upcoming Events:
1. Monday, 7 March at 1200 in GL-109: Brown Bag Lunch with Anisa Mehdi, Fulbright Scholar in 2008-9 will speak on "What's a Woman Reporter to Do?  Nuances of covering Egypt and beyond"

2. Tuesday, 8 March at 1200 in n the M.E. Auditorium (the small auditorium behind Watkins): Bosnia and Herzegovina Minister of Defense.  2 members are welcome to join a special lunch with the MoD from 1100 to 1145.  If you are interested, please let me know at acoconno@nps.edu.

3. Special thanks to all LatAm FAOs that participated in the JFSSP social events and lunch with LTG Keen. It was a wonderful opportunity for FAOs to network and make connections as well as to learn from those that are currently assigned to billets within the AOR. Look forward to seeing even better participation next year.

4. Our next FAOAM social will be... Come meet the new board!

5. SAND-MIIS War and Peace Mixer on Friday, 7 April at Duffys Tavern (282 High St Monterey, CA).  The last one was a great success.  Security & Development Group (SAND-MIIS) is hosting the second of many War & Peace mixers to bring together the Security & Development communities in Monterey and at MIIS. There's a lot to learn from each other and a lot of connections to be made!  Blurred boundaries between civilian and military organizations prompt conflicts over what researchers call domain conflicts. Traditionally, development addresses civilians and security deals with combatants. In fragile states, the line between civilians and combatants is often blurred. This “domain conflict” is a critical problem in coordinating inter-organizational operations in these settings. With the goal of building “Domain Consensus” between these two fields, SAND-MIIS and Duffy’s bar host monthly War & Peace night’s in order to build informal understanding and connections between these two spheres. http://blogs.miis.edu/sand

More Brown Bag lunches are in the works, so please stay tuned to your new FAOAM Board.

Sincerely
LT Andrew O’Connor,
Chairman, FAOAM
Faoam.org