“Security is a concern at every diplomatic mission, and some facilities are obviously more dangerous than others,” Wolf said. “The State Department works very hard to protect our diplomats and department security efforts have done nothing but increased during the past decades. But all State Department employees realize that there is no such thing as complete security, and they go about their business anyway. To do otherwise would be to let terrorism win.”
Wolf spent 10 years teaching in the Xenia School District before joining the State Department in 1983.
“I wondered about moving a wife and two children overseas, but it all worked out well,” said Wolf, whose wife, Tina, is a native of the The Netherlands, but grew up in Dayton.
Wolf’s first assignment took him to Vienna, Austria where he worked in public affairs for eight months before moving to Stuttgart, Germany where he remained for two years. The move to Bombay (now called Mumbai) India in 1986 presented a whole new set of challenges for Wolf. He had an apartment with glorious views of the Arabian Sea, but found that he and his family were the only Westerners for two miles.
Wolf moved to Warsaw, Poland for three years where he worked as the Exchanges Officer arranging academic and professional programs and trips.
“I did my most important work in Poland, because we were putting ideas and programs in place that made it change for the better and helped strengthen the country,” he said.
Wolf’s next posting to London was a favorite for the cultural events that he experienced as the deputy press attaché, or spokesman for the United States Embassy.
“We went to the Queen’s garden party where there about 8,000 guests,” said Wolf, who grew up in Bellevue, a northern Ohio town of about 8,000 residents. “I thought, here’s this guy from a small town in Ohio drinking tea at Buckingham Palace. It was kind of surreal.”
Wolf is the new Coordinator for the Montgomery Valley Career Technology Center English as a Second Language program.
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