May 11, 2005
by Dick Prentke
In preparing a memorial for Bob Losey, we caught up with the spectacular diplomatic career of roommate Dick Erdman, who has been US ambassador to Algeria since July 2003. He is enjoying a tremendous and rewarding experience because our modest relations for the first four decades of Algeria’s independent existence are blossoming. Dick is not just the steward of an existing relationship but building toward a strategic partnership.
Part of his mission is to make Algeria and the substantial trade and investment opportunities it offers to US business better known. Any classmate interested in doing business in North Africa/Algeria should feel free to contact Dick.
Likely our only classmate who speaks French, Turkish, Portuguese, and Serbo-Croatian, Dick has been posted in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa and has received a number of State Department awards. As deputy director for Eastern Europe in 1993-94, he personally negotiated a substantial portion of the Bosnian Federation Constitution Agreement, a key step that ended the two-front war in Bosnia and paved the way for the subsequent Dayton Accords.
Dick and Sibyl’s son, Matt, is with the Peace Corps in Madagascar, having a great adventure, working with villagers to preserve the environment, and living in a small village with no electricity or running water.
Daughter Sarah is in Ireland, where, in July, she will marry a Foreign Service officer posted at the US Embassy in Dublin and continue her writing career. Her book, Nine Hills to Nambokaha – a touching and insightful account of her Peace Corps village in the northern Cote Ivoire as it hovers between the forces of tradition and change – has been acclaimed by major newspapers across the country, and both Barnes & Noble and Borders selected her as an emerging talent on the American literary scene.
© 2005 Dick Prentke and The Princeton Alumni Weekly. Used by permission.
|
