Ronald Reagan Building, Washington, DC
Thank you, Andy, for kicking us off. Good morning to everyone here in person and those tuning in virtually. A special welcome to Erik’s family – his mother Peggy; his brother and sister-in-law, Kurt and Jory; his sister Brooke and her son, Serafino; and of course his wife, Gloria, and their son, Ian. I’m told Erik’s daughter, Bella, is also tuning in virtually from London, where she is studying to become a screenwriter.
Before we celebrate Erik and this tremendous achievement, I have to depart from script to pay tribute to Gloria. I just learned that Gloria passed her State Department Oral Exam and will be joining the Foreign Service. Ian put it best: “I guess I have a lot to live up to.”
Erik grew up in Indiana, in a family dedicated to service and giving back. His mother, Peggy, worked with underprivileged communities through United Way and then at the Notre Dame library. His father, Gordy, was a public school teacher who taught high school chemistry for over four decades. The family’s focus on helping professions clearly influenced Erik, who is described by almost everyone he meets as someone who truly has a heart for service, someone who, as his mother put it, constantly asks the question: “what can I do to help?”
It’s a quality that surfaced when Erik was quite young. His mother remembers him caring diligently for his baby sister Brooke, becoming, as she described, a kind of second father to her, and making her laugh with his renditions of the Beatles’ “Rocky Raccoon.” And when Peggy herself injured her back skating at the university ice rink on Christmas Eve, Erik – then just in high school, found a doctor willing to help out on the holiday, and for weeks cooked and brought her meals, while practically carrying her to and from her bed.
It wasn’t just his family who took notice of Erik’s caring nature. In college, Erik befriended the late Father Theodore Hesburgh, an internationally recognized defender of human rights who at the time was the President of Notre Dame. The two became penpals when Erik joined the Peace Corps in Ecuador, and Father Ted became one of Erik’s closest mentors, always reminding him that “one person can make a difference.” They were so close that eventually, when Erik converted to Catholicism, Father Ted became Erik’s godfather. And he baptized both of Erik’s children.
Professionally, Father Ted was an enormous influence in Erik’s life. He encouraged Erik to pursue a graduate degree and a career in international development, and helped Erik find research funding for his dissertation.
Father Ted also helped Erik return to Ecuador in the 1990s to start a health care nonprofit, Andean Health and Development, which turned out to be Erik’s first exposure to USAID. The nonprofit, whose work was supported by a small USAID grant, worked to fundamentally change healthcare in rural Ecuador, training doctors to help communities prevent diseases through better nutrition and vaccination while also helping clinics treat patients through training and resources. Today, 100 percent of the staff in the organization’s health system are Ecuadorian, and 75 percent are women. For his work starting the organization and serving as its first Executive Director, Erik won the Dr. Thomas A. Dooley Award from Notre Dame’s Alumni Association for outstanding service to humankind in 1999.
Although he’s traveling to North Africa, it’s clear that Latin America holds a special place in Erik’s heart, especially since it’s where he met his wife, Gloria. Gloria worked at a mall in Ecuador that Erik would often visit to go to the bank and grab lunch. Almost every day, Erik would stop by and talk to Gloria at her store, under the pretext of stopping by on his way to Kentucky Fried Chicken, which was right next door. It took him several weeks to ask Gloria out for coffee, weeks in which Erik’s lunches almost solely consisted of KFC. Does Erik actually like the Colonel's secret recipe? Let’s just say we all make sacrifices for love.
After stops at Notre Dame and the Peace Corps headquarters, Erik eventually joined the Foreign Service with USAID in 2004. Erik’s first post was at USAID’s Mission in Uganda, where he worked as a health officer. His focus, from the very beginning, was localization. At the time, a large U.S.-based contractor specializing in logistics and commodities handled much of the Mission’s health work. Erik was part of the effort to help Ugandan partners benefit from that opportunity. He helped design a new program that would set up a local organization to take over the work then being handled by the larger company. The program was such a success that, ten years later and long after he left Uganda, Erik received an email from one of the local staff with the news that the local partner had just won an award for their health work.
Since that first posting in Uganda, Erik has spent close to two decades as a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, serving in Peru, Afghanistan, Guatemala, DC of course, and most recently, North Macedonia.
Everywhere he has traveled, he’s had an impact. In Guatemala, he helped create a major new public-private alliance to create economic opportunities in the Western Highlands. In Afghanistan, he helped provide tens of millions of dollars in direct funding to the Afghan ministries for health and education, helping to educate girls and supporting NGOs providing lifesaving medical care for Afghan communities, particularly women. And in North Macedonia, during his tenure, the Mission’s yearly budget more than tripled. He not only had to manage this increase of funds, but did so while managing operations through the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, and of course, the country’s name change.
Wherever Erik goes, he remains deeply committed to colleagues. One coworker from North Macedonia remembered how, during the first few months of the pandemic, he stopped by the homes of his staff members to personally deliver chocolate to help mitigate the mental health effects of isolation. Erik’s past experiences have prepared him well for his newest post: Mission Director for USAID/Morocco.
The United States and Morocco have enjoyed strong diplomatic relations for over 200 years. Morocco was the first country to recognize the newly independent United States, and since 1960, the Agency has worked to support the welfare of the Moroccan people.
Today, Morocco faces the worst seasonal drought the country has seen in 30 years, and water levels in dams and reservoirs around the country are sinking rapidly. The Abdelmoumen Dam in Agadir, for example, which supplies the region of Morocco that produces the most fruits and vegetables, is filled to just four percent of its capacity.
The drought has worsened the country’s rising food and fuel prices amidst a tough economic climate. Nationally, one in ten Moroccans are unemployed and about 80 percent of those unemployed are young people. In response, USAID is providing capital funding to nearly a thousand struggling cooperatives to help pay for equipment, raw materials, and production tools, supporting a crucial part of Morocco’s economy and its fight against poverty.
But our work extends far beyond responding to immediate needs. Morocco has always been a place where the Government takes smaller pilot programs and scales them nationally – a model of how we want our work to evolve over time. For years, the Agency has helped boost government accountability, support local elections, and expand participation in civil society and government among minority communities including young people, women, and persons with disabilities. And within the last decade, thanks to USAID’s partnership with the Ministry of Education, the National Program for Reading has helped more than 4 million grade schoolers across 24,000 public and private schools read at grade level – just one of many of our efforts to educate young people and help them lift themselves out of poverty.
Our work in Morocco requires a leader able to build on this work and tackle the challenges faced by the Moroccan people. Someone who can make an impact beyond the programs we implement. Someone who truly has a heart for service, and of course, who will take advantage of all the KFCs that Morocco has to offer.
Erik is that someone in every respect, and I’m grateful that he will be representing the Agency, and the U.S., in Morocco. With that, it’s my pleasure to administer the oath of office.