| JEFFREY E. ENGELS International Development Specialist |
Biography Jeffrey E. Engels is a fourth generation Californian who grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. He attended local public schools and received his Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude from Dominican University in 'International Studies' in 1983. As an undergraduate student he studied Russian history, literature, and politics. His Senior Thesis, 'On the Plausibility of Marxism', led upon graduation to a lengthy solo tour of the Soviet Union and Eastern and Western Europe. This was the first of several trips to the USSR over the next few years. Interested in international politics and law, with an eye to the Foreign Service, Jeffrey enrolled in the University of San Francisco School of Law. During law school, he attended the Institution on International & Comparative Law in Moscow, Russia, and Warsaw, Poland. While at the Institute he studied East-West trade that inspired him to shift his emphasis from international law to international trade and commerce. In 1987 Jeffrey joined Lockwood International, an export management firm that specialized in consulting, sourcing and supplying infrastructure products for developing countries throughout Asia. Over the course of the next 10 years Lockwood International participated in most major infrastructure projects in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines. However, it was the least developed countries where Lockwood International worked--such as China, Thailand, and Vietnam--that interested Jeffrey most. Lockwood International grew to a USD$7.0 million operation with several domestic and international affiliate offices by 1994, when Jeffrey became President and partners. He was instrumental in opening up secondary markets and diversified Lockwood’s client portfolio to Latin America and the Middle East. In 1995, while traveling in Peru, he met his wife, Karla Wesley Ph.D., then a graduate student conducting research in the Amazon Basin. Jeffrey and Karla married in 1999 and while Karla pursued a doctorate at the University of California at Davis, Jeffrey began a private consulting practice in 2001 with a focus on international trade, business development, and marketing for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Assignments included work in Chile, Russia, Ukraine, and Armenia. In Armenia, Jeffrey worked on several marketing plans for the processed vegetable and wine sectors. While in Yerevan, Jeffrey was invited to join the United States Department of Agriculture's Marketing Assistance Project (USDA-MAP), the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Exension Service's largest and longest running agribusiness development project worldwide. The Marketing Assistance Project was a unique undertaking by the USDA, providing a concerted combination of technical, marketing, and financial assistance to more than sixty core clients-food processors covering all major agricultural sectors. Building capacities of the Armenian Agricultural Academy, USDA-MAP established four new Academy departments--the Agribusiness Teaching Center (ATC), the Foundation for Applied Research & Agriculture (FARA), the Small Farm Water Management Research Center (SFWMRC), and an Extension service. Simultaneously, MAP established the ARID Goat Center, an outgrowth of a successful genetic enhancement breeding project that grew into an independent organization providing insemination, veterinarian, and small ruminant health and herd management services. Jeffrey served as USDA-MAP’s Marketing Manager for two years, focusing on assistance to farmers and SMEs to develop high value horticulture for the domestic and international markets before he became MAP’s Director and Project Coordinator (2003-2005). In 2004, USDA-MAP underwent two significant changes, one external and one internal. Within USDA, project coordination shifted from the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) to the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS). At the same time in Armenia, Jeffrey spearheaded a phase-over of the public sector Marketing Assistance Project to a private sector Armenian NGO--the Center for Agribusiness & Rural Development (CARD). Closing down MAP and starting up CARD was a challenging undertaking for Jeffrey, but he accomplished both successfully. It was a full year for Karla as well since she completed her doctorate and began work as a conservation consultant with Armenian NGOs and the U.S. Peace Corps. Under Jeffrey’s guidance, and with a select team of Armenian development professionals, CARD assisted farmers and agribusinesses in producing, marketing, and exporting food and related products to increase incomes, create jobs, and raise the standard of living for rural Armenians through an integrated package of market-driven agricultural development services. Jeffrey provided leadership and guidance to CARD’s Management Team, organized and implemented development projects aimed at improving food security, reducing poverty, increasing private sector-led economic growth, enhancing export competitiveness, advancing SME and supply chain development, and achieving sustainable agriculture. In so doing, Jeffrey collaborated with the USDA, USAID, the World Bank, ACDI/VOCA, the FAO, UMCOR, Action Against Hunger, Avalon International, U.S. land grant universities, the Armenian Agricultural Academy, the Armenian Ministry of Agriculture, and many other international and national organizations. Jeffrey and Karla left Armenia in December, 2006. In 2007, they moved to Australia, where Jeffrey began work on his doctorate in Development Studies at the University of Melbourne. Jeffrey's dissertation is on 'Aid Project Exit Strategies: Building strong sustainable institutions'. Karla is currently the Manager of the Volunteer Program for Australian Volunteers International (AVI), managing 32 staff supporting 350+ volunteers in 21 countries. |
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| Accepting an Honorary Doctorate from the Armenian Agricultural Academy, November, 2005. |
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