Michael J. McLaughlin,Vice-President Michael McLaughlin retired voluntarily from the Senior Foreign Service on December 31, 1999 with the rank of Minister Counselor. Prior to his retirement from the Foreign Service, he was the Director of the ICASS Service Center, 1995-99. During his 27 years with the Department of State as a career Foreign Service Officer, Mr. McLaughlin was assigned to American Embassies in Jakarta, Indonesia; Helsinki, Finland; Tehran, Iran; Warsaw, Poland; the U. S. Mission, Berlin; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; and Athens, Greece. He also served in Washington D.C. in the Office of Foreign Buildings (FBO) as special assistant to the Deputy Assistant Secretary. Mr. McLaughlin led a 50 member intergovernmental team as program manager for a revolutionary new management and reimbursement system, i.e., the International Cooperative Administrative Support Services (ICASS) system. He successfully moved from a concept to an operational reality worldwide at 162 U.S. diplomatic missions abroad within 30 months. ICASS represented a new management paradigm to foster entrepreneurial government, including the installation of an activity based costing budget and cost distribution system encompassing approximately $700 million annually of shared administrative support services for 38 U.S. Government agencies. His efforts were recognized by Vice President Gore's National Performance Review (NPR) Hammer Award for government reinvention efforts and by the Department of State's 1997 Luther I. Replogle Award for Management Improvement for "leading the ICASS revolution and being the driving force behind the single largest initiative to bring about change that will permit international agencies to live within reduced budgets; for making costs and billing of administrative support transparent to users; for devolving greater authority to managers in the field; and for giving customers a voice in decisions about services."Mr. McLaughlin was born in Jersey City, New Jersey and later moved to Port Jervis, New York. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Kansas in 1965 and attended graduate school at Georgetown University, 1971-2. He completed the Department of Defense Capstone course in November 1999. Mr. McLaughlin received the Presidential Meritorious Service award in 1994 for "sustained record of extraordinary accomplishments," three Superior Honor Awards, four senior performance pay awards, a meritorious honor award, several group superior and meritorious honor awards, and a group heroism award. Mr. McLaughlin served as a Navy Supply Officer, 1965-72. He received the Navy Commendation Medal with combat"V".

My older brother Mike, the kid in the middle.