Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Staff

President – Ambassador Kenneth L. Brown

Kenneth L. Brown became President of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training in May 2001. As a career Foreign Service Officer from 1961 to 1995, he served at the American Embassy in Brussels and six posts in Africa. The latter included ambassadorships in Congo-Brazzaville, Cote d’Ivoire, and Ghana. At the Department of State he held the positions of Deputy Director of UN Political Affairs, Associate Spokesman, Director of Central African Affairs, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, among others.

After leaving the Foreign Service, Ambassador Brown was Director of the Dean Rusk Program in International Studies at Davidson College from 1995 to 2001. He has a BA in International Relations from Pomona College, an MA in International Relations from Yale University, an MA in Political Science from NYU, and a Ph.D. in Political Sociology from Cape Coast University in Ghana. Ambassador Brown is married to attorney Bonnie H. Lea-Brown, a specialist in community development.

Executive Director – Chris Sibilla

Chris Sibilla is a Foreign Service officer seconded from the Department of State. His overseas postings include Copenhagen; San Jose, Costa Rica; Havana, where he was the human rights officer; Moscow; and the U.S. Mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna, where he was deputy political counselor. His domestic assignments include the Armenia desk, the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL), including one as deputy office director; the Cuba desk; and the Bureau of Oceans, Environment and Science (OES). His wife Lycia is Coordinator for the Community Liaison Officer (CLO) program in the Department’s Family Liaison Office (FLO). They have two sons, Nicholas and Max, both at the University of Pittsburgh.

Oral History Director – Charles Stuart Kennedy

Stuart Kennedy has been director of the Foreign Affairs Oral History Program since its inception in 1985. A career officer in the US Foreign Service from 1955 to 1985, he retired with the rank of Minister Counselor. Mr. Kennedy was consul general in Naples, Italy (1979-81), Seoul, South Korea (1976-79), Athens, Greece (1970-74) and Saigon, South Vietnam (1969-70). He also served in Washington D.C., Germany, Saudi Arabia and Yugoslavia. He was educated at Williams College (BA) and Boston University (MA), and served four years (1950-54) in the United States Air Force, including duty in South Korea, Japan and West Germany. He is the author of The American Consul: A History of the United States Consular Service 1776-1914, and co-author of The U.S. Consul at Work and American Ambassadors in a Troubled World. He was awarded the Foreign Service Cup from the Director General of the foreign service in 1997 for his work as an oral historian.

Publishing Director – Margery B. Thompson

Margery Thompson directs ADST’s book-related programs, advises diplomats and others on editing and publishing matters, and coordinates the ADST-DACOR Diplomats and Diplomacy Series. Before joining ADST in 1995, she was director of publications and editor at the Georgetown University Institute for the Study of Diplomacy (ISD) from 1980 to 1994. At ISD she was coeditor and compiler (with Smith Simpson) of Education in Diplomacy: An Instructional Guide (ISD/University Press of America, 1987) and editor of As Others See Us: United States Diplomacy Viewed from Abroad (ISD, 1989) and Beacons: Great Teachers of the Georgetown School of Foreign Service (SFS/Georgetown University, 1994). She collaborated with ISD authors and publishers in the development, editing, and publication of many other ISD books, reports, and monographs and is now doing the same for ADST. Her previous appointments included the Institute of International Education, the Brookings Institution, the University of Pittsburgh Center for Regional Economic Studies, and the Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations. She was educated at Northwestern University, the University of Pittsburgh, and George Washington University.

Business Manager – Marilyn Bentley

Marilyn Bentley joined the ADST staff in February 1997. She has a B.S. in medical laboratory science from Northeastern University. As a foreign service spouse she accompanied her husband on tours to Doha, Qatar; Amman, Jordan; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. As ADST’s office manager, she is responsible for all financial accounts, membership, tax, payroll and budgetary matters; sundry shop sales; and processing all book and CD-ROM sales. She spearheaded the project to integrate the foreign service spouse oral histories into ADST’s foreign affairs oral history collection. Mrs. Bentley is co-editor of Frontline Diplomacy: The U.S. Oral History Collection on CD-ROM.