Scott Kofmehl ’03 has logged more mileage than an airline pilot during his career in the Foreign Service. Opposite page, Scott and his wife, Aryani (also in the Foreign Service), pose in front of Calle Regina, a historic church in Mexico City. Below, Scott and Aryani talk to a guide at a Hindu temple in Bali. At left, Scott sits in at an Islamic boarding school in East Java, Indonesia.
What’s next for the globe-trotting couple? Mexico City. They started their current assignment in May 2010. In the space of a few years, Scott has seen his interests, his career and his life changed based on serendipitous meetings, new and lasting relationships, and decisions made in an instant. One career decision he’s made is now long term. He’s in the Foreign Service to stay. “Our job is changing. Reporting and analysis has been replaced by getting out there to engage the country and build relationships,” says Scott, who returned to Juniata in February to build relationships with graduating seniors. “I’m just a low-level guy (in the State Department) but I hope students can identify with me and see that they can take that journey too.” >j< 67
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When Jones was called back to Washington in 2005 to be Senior Adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Coordinator of Iraq Policy, Scott was initially depressed at losing a mentor. But like most athletes, he had adept timing. “I told him ‘I’m not doing anything this summer and would love to work for [him]’. I was able to sit at a desk outside his office and learn how he thought through policy issues and I was able to read the reports and learn more about Iraq,” he says. It was at Harvard, ironically, where he received from a classmate advice he has etched in his memory. “He told me ‘Don’t ever let classes get in the way of an education,’ and I’ve never forgotten that.” Also among the diplomats and foreign service dignitaries Scott met outside Harvard classrooms was Barbara Bodine, the former ambassador to Yemen and deputy chief of mission to Kuwait in the first Gulf War. Soon, after soaking in the information he was gleaning from some of the most experienced people in the State Department, Scott found his interests changing. “I started reading and thinking more about post-conflict state building. In my second year at Harvard I started to get some ideas about going for my Ph.D. in international relations.” After winning a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholarship, Scott went off to the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2005 to follow his interest in studying how states recover after wars. He studied with another mentor, Christopher Coker, author of War in an Age of Risk. This would seem a good time to stop to remember that human beings should also never let an education get in the way of a fulfilling personal life. But we have to go back in time a bit to the summer of 2004, after Scott’s first year at Harvard. As with most things in his post-Juniata career, Scott made a quick decision that would change his life forever. A good friend and classmate, Ron Luhur, a native of Indonesia, asked if Scott wanted to travel to Jakarta with him to visit his family. “I had never been to Asia, so I jumped at the chance to go. The first day there, my friend said, ‘We’re going to meet some of my high school friends.’” One of the friends Scott met was Aryani Manring, an Indonesian-American woman who turned out to be visiting family. She actually lived in Philadelphia. Scott remembers they met on a Tuesday, only to find out that this intriguing professional dancer was returning to the United States in less than a week. Aryani, who graduated from Swarthmore, went back to a professional dance company in Philly and Scott returned to Boston. E-mails and phone calls commenced. Whatever communication ensued must have been effective because the couple was engaged in July 2005 and married in
August 2006. “We had the wedding in Pittsburgh and another reception in Jakarta,” says Scott. By the time the wedding bells and Indonesian gamelan went silent, it was time for Scott to apply for the Foreign Service. Somewhat like the military, Foreign Service employees can apply to go to certain countries, but the posting choice goes to the government. The couple had decided that if Jakarta was on their list of possible assignments, that would be their top choice. Incredibly, a slot for Scott in the economic section of the American Embassy in Jakarta opened up. “The opportunity to be with family is a rare thing in the Foreign Service,” Scott explains. Aryani started as an embassy employee but now is a member of the Foreign Service as well. Scott worked in the embassy’s economic section on anticorruption reform while Aryani worked the political section on human rights office, and then counter-terrorism and police reform. When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Indonesia in February 2009, both Aryani and Scott were able to participate in the preparations for the visit and brief the secretary—although Aryani got to ride with the Ambassador in the secretary’s motorcade. Scott admits that Aryani and he were slightly starstruck by Clinton. “She’s an amazing woman. What she’s done for the department is nothing less than incredible.”