| 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. In this program he took a course on 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 products for hospitals, schools, and affordable housing for developing countries in the Far East. Over the course of the next 10 years Lockwood International participated in most major infrastructure projects in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, but it was the least developed countries at that time such as China, Thailand, and Vietnam that interested Jeffrey most. Lockwood International grew to a $7.0 million operation with several domestic and international affiliate offices by 1994, when Jeffrey became Partner and President. 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 there, Jeffrey was invited to join the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Marketing Assistance Project (MAP) in Yerevan, the agency’s largest and longest running agribusiness development project anywhere in the world, as Marketing Manager. 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 covering all major agricultural sectors. Building capacities of the Armenian Agricultural Academy, USDA-MAP established an Extension service and two Academy departments: the Small Farm Water Management Research Center and the Foundation for Applied Research in Armenia. Simultaneously, MAP launched 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 management shifted from the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) to the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS). At the same time, Jeffrey spearheaded the transition from the public sector Marketing Assistance Project to a private sector, Armenian registered and owned NGO known as the Center for Agribusiness & Rural Development (CARD). Closing out MAP and starting up CARD was a challenging undertaking for Jeffrey, but he accomplished both successfully and is currently the Country Director of CARD. It was a full year for Karla as well since she completed her doctorate and began work as a conservation consultant with Armenian NGOs. Under Jeffrey’s guidance, and with a select team of Armenian development professionals, the Center for Agribusiness & Rural Development assists 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 agricultural development services that are always market driven. Jeffrey provides leadership and guidance to CARD’s Management Team, organizes and implements 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. Jeffrey collaborates with 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 will live in Yerevan until December, 2006 when they will be moving to Melbourne, Australia in 2007 for Jeffrey to begin his doctoral work in Development Studies at the University of Melbourne and for Karla to work as an environmental consultant. |
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| Accepting an Honorary Doctorate from the Armenian Agricultural Academy, November, 2005. |
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