Jim is a career State Department foreign service officer, most recently assigned to U.S. Mission to Somalia as the management officer to reestablish operations in Mogadishu. He previously served as a general services officer for Tri-Mission Rome; as special assistant in the office of the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources; as a watch officer in the State Department’s Operations Center; as a political advisor at Regional Command East in Bagram, Afghanistan; as Vice-Consul in Tunis, Tunisia; and as a provincial action officer on Provincial Reconstruction Team Ninewa in Mosul, Iraq. Before joining the Foreign Service, Jim served for six years in the United States Marine Corps. He earned an undergraduate degree in physics from the University of Colorado. Jim is married and has two children.