Trustees & Policy Council
Overall direction of the Foundation rests with its five Trustees, including two Trustees who knew and worked with Mrs. Cox, and a Trustee who is a recently retired Foreign Service Officer.
The Trustees consult a Policy Council which plays a critical role in the Foundation’s program, advising the Trustees and participating in the development of projects and activities. Council members are retired and active Foreign Service officers and other distinguished individuals with experience in public service, education and charitable organizations.
Trustees
Margo Branscomb, Chair
Dian Owen VanDeMark, President
Harvie Branscomb, Jr., Secretary
Shannon M. Wilde, Treasurer
Elizabeth Jones
Policy Council
Marc Grossman, Chair
Ambassador Grossman is Vice Chairman of The Cohen Group, an international consulting firm. He retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2005 with the personal rank of Career Ambassador, having completed a distinguished 29-year career. As Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (2001-2005) he was the most senior Foreign Service Officer. Immediately prior, his responsibilities included serving as Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources (2000 to 2001), and U.S. Ambassador to Turkey (1994 to 1997.) His other overseas assignments include Deputy Director of the Private Office of Lord Carrington, the NATO Secretary-General, from 1983 to 1986 and at the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan from 1976 to 1983. Ambassador Grossman graduated from the University of California Santa Barbara and received the MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics.
Faris A. Kirkland
Alex Kirkland retired as a Captain from the United States Navy having served in the active and reserve components for 27 years. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Corpus Christi State University and a Master of Science degree in Global Leadership from the University of San Diego School of Business. Further academic training has been accomplished at the Naval Postgraduate School and the Naval War College. He has traveled considerably throughout his career. He is also presently serving as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Saint James Episcopal School.
Gretchen Gerwe Welch
Gretchen Welch is the immediate past Dean of the FSI School of Language Studies. Ms. Welch joined the Foreign Service in 1980. Currently engaged in Department of State consultative projects, her prior positions were as Executive Director, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs (2004-5), where she oversaw the management operations of the 54 U.S. Embassies in Europe and Eurasia ; and as Regional Program Officer in the U.S. Embassy in Cairo , Egypt (2002-2004), where she supported the Department's Middle East Partnership Initiative. She graduated from Stanford University in 1978 with a degree in international relations and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Henry R. Nau
Henry R. Nau is Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University. He has taught at Williams College and as Visiting Professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, Stanford, and Columbia Universities. From January 1981 to July 1983, he served on President Reagan's National Security Council as senior staff member responsible for international economic affairs. Dr. Nau also served, in 1975-1977, as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs in the Department of State. In addition to numerous articles, his published books include, Perspectives on International Relations: Power, Institutions, and Ideas; At Home Abroad: Identity and Power in American Foreign Policy; Trade and Security: US Policies at Cross-Purposes; The Myth of America’s Decline: Leading the World Economy into the 1990’s; and National Politics and International Technology: Nuclear Reactor Development in Western Europe .
Craig A. Kelly
Ambassador Kelly is the Principal Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Western Affairs, at the Department of State. He was Ambassador to Chile from 2004 to 2007. He served as Executive Assistant to Secretary of State Colin Powell from March 2001 to June 2004. Before that, he served for two years as Executive Assistant to Thomas Pickering, who was then the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs. Ambassador Kelly has served in a variety of overseas posts, including Bogota, Rome and Paris. In Washington, he has served in the Western Hemisphere and European Bureaus as well as at the National Security Council. He Holds a Ph.D. in Romance Languages and European History from the University of California-Los Angeles, a diploma from the Ecole Nationale d'Administration in Paris and attended the National War College in Washington. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Italy.
Patricia H. Scroggs
Patricia Scroggs is currently the Program Manager for the Charles B.. Rangel International Affairs Program, a Department of State, Howard University and U.S. Congress partnership that identifies and prepares outstanding young people for careers in the Foreign Service. She assumed this position at Howard University in January 2006 after a twenty year career as a Foreign Service Officer. Before her last position as the Director of the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs’ Office of Regional and Security Policy, she was a Una Chapman Cox Foundation Sabbatical Fellow. Her overseas posts included Tokyo, Seoul, and Mazatlan. Washington assignments were to the Economic and East Asian and Pacific Bureaus; She has an MA in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
Maura Harty
Ambassador Maura Harty is currently a Senior Policy Director with The International Center for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC). Ambassador Harty was United States Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Consular Affairs, from November 21, 2002 to February 29, 2008. She retired as a senior Foreign Service Officer with the rank of Career Minister. Her 27 year Foreign Service career included service in Columbia and Madrid before she was selected as a Deputy Executive Assistant to Secretary of State Warren Christopher. Following that assignment, she became the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Paraguay. She received her Bachelor's degree at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.