Interim Mission Director’s biography

	Interim Mission Director, Gerald A. Cashion

Gerald Anthony Cashion was designated the interim Mission Director for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Madagascar in April 2008.

Since joining USAID in 1978, Mr. Cashion’s career has included service in several USAID posts including Mali, Washington, Kenya, Barbados, and Morocco. He was the Regional Director of the USAID Regional Center for Southern Africa (RCSA) in Gaborone, Botswana from 2004 until his retirement in 2006. Since then he has worked as an independent consultant and on special assignments with USAID as Acting Representative and Interim Director of USAID/Timor Leste and USAID/Djibouti. Before joining the Foreign Service, Mr. Cashion was a Fulbright doctoral research fellow and Development Consultant in Mali. He also worked as a Peace Corps volunteer working in rural development (construction) in Sierra Leone.

Mr. Cashion speaks French, Bambara, some Swahili, and Krio. He earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology/African Art History/African Folklore from Indiana University in 1984. He also obtained B.S. English from the Loyola University of Chicago in 1965.