Island Summer Resident Strengthens Ties Abroad
By Leslie Rott

Heather Kalmbach (left) at her swearing-in ceremony at the State Department on the Mall in Washington, D.C., with her mother, Melissa Croghan. (Photograph courtesy of Melissa Croghan)

One year ago, Heather Kalmbach, a political officer for the U.S. State Department, was sent to Saudi Arabia to work at the Consulate in Jeddah.

“Sometimes I feel like a journalist,” she said of her job, which includes meeting with people and building relationships. She calls herself a traditional diplomat, monitoring what is going on in Saudi Arabia and maintaining friendly relations between that country and the United States.

Always interested in travel and politics, working for the State Department was the “natural course” for Ms. Kalmbach. To get the job, she took written and oral exams, the hardest she has ever taken, she said, then waited a year for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to perform a security check, including interviews with several Island residents she had listed as references.

A member of the Croghan family, long-time cottagers on the West Bluff, Ms. Kalmbach has spent many summers on the Island, working at the Leather Corral and as a historical interpreter at Fort Mackinac.

Once accepted into the Foreign Service, she was enrolled in a class of 100 and ultimately was asked to select 25 assignments from a list of possibilities. Syria and Egypt were her preferred choices, but Saudi Arabia became her new home and she was one of the first in her class to leave for an assignment.

In the year she has worked for the consulate in Jeddah, she has been surrounded by activity, from the Crawford Summit to the death of King Fahd, the country’s first elections, and the visit of several high ranking Americans, including Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney.

On December 6, just five weeks after arriving at her new job, the consulate was attacked by five heavily armed terrorists. They did not penetrate the main building, but five employees were killed and 10 were injured in the attack.

“It was by far the scariest day of my entire life,” she said of the experience. “We lost our colleagues and friends.”

She notes differences between American and Saudi Arabian culture: The weekend there is Thursday and Friday, society is gender segregated, women are not allowed to drive, stores close five times a day for prayer, and she has become accustomed to wearing an abaya, a black robe that is to be worn in public by women.

Similarities also exist. She is surrounded by familiar name brands like Starbucks, Chili’s, and TGI Friday.

Ms. Kalmbach’s tour in Saudi Arabia ends September 1 and she will return to Washington, D.C. Already well versed in Arabic, French, and Spanish, she will spend seven months studying Hebrew to prepare for her tour in Jerusalem, which will begin in June 2006.

“It’s been a great experience for my first tour,” she said. “It’s a really fascinating place, given the time.”

She completed her undergraduate work in international relations at the University of Arizona and graduate courses in Middle East studies at the University of Michigan. She also studied as a Fulbright Scholar in Morocco and as a CASA Fellow in Egypt.