This proud Tacoma native could win Biden appointment to low-profile but important job
For weeks after President Biden was elected, speculation swirled that he’d appoint someone from our state to a prominent role in his administration.
Among political handicappers, early bets were placed on Gov. Jay Inslee. Never mind that he’d just won a third term and pooh-poohed the rumors. The fellow Democrat who briefly ran against Biden on a save-the-climate, save-the-planet platform was floated for posts including Energy and Interior secretary.
Behind the scenes, however, another Washingtonian surfaced as an intriguing candidate for a Biden appointment. It’s a relatively invisible job, but one that matters as much now as when it was created 60 years ago.
The position is US Peace Corps director, and the person who might fill it is Washington native Kathleen Corey.
Not just any Washington native, but a Tacoman who couldn’t be more proud of her third-generation lineage. Corey grew up here, went to school here, helped launch a world-affairs organization here, still owns a home here and plans to retire here.
But first, she’d like to extend her time in the other Washington, where she serves as president of the nonprofit Women of Peace Corps Legacy, if given the opportunity to lead the Peace Corps through the enormous challenges of the post-pandemic era.
A year ago, thousands of Peace Corps volunteers in 61 countries were ordered to evacuate, their lives thrown into chaos while COVID-19 exacted its terrible global toll: more than 2.75 million people dead so far.
“We all hope they will identify a director soon as there are approximately 7,000 volunteers that will eventually go back into the field,” Corey told me recently. “It is a huge undertaking so stable, capable leadership is very important.”
It’s especially important as the US reengages with the world after four years of President Trump’s America First doctrine and as our society strives to reactivate young people for a life of public service.
“Sixty years of positive, strong, valued relationships cannot be underestimated,” Corey said.
Four months after Biden won the election and the foreign-service grapevine began buzzing with her name, Corey tells me she’s still being considered for the post, somewhere in the “black box” of White House decision making.
On the list of thousands of political appointments, Peace Corps director is far from the top. Many people probably don’t even know it falls under the president’s purview, as it has since President Kennedy established the Peace Corps in 1961.
Corey is reluctant to publicly promote herself for the post, so I’ll join the crowd of folks doing it for her.
The Stadium High School (Class of 1965) alum’s first taste of Peace Corps life was as a 20-something-year-old literature teacher in Liberia, West Africa, in the 1970s.
She went on to live and work in 18 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and Central America, including many years managing Peace Corps programs (and negotiating new programs) in several countries. She’s also done refugee assistance and worked for the State Department as a leadership instructor and consular officer.
But what’s most impressive to me isn’t found on Corey’s resume: her heart for the volunteers who form the Peace Corps’ backbone and make a two-plus year commitment to public service. After last year’s mass evacuation, she went to bat for them, calling for extended health insurance, unemployment aid and other support.
Having overseen five previous evacuations from wartorn countries, she knows a thing or two about the hardships they face.
Two decades ago, Corey felt a tug to return home and care for her aging father. From 2001-2003, she was executive director of World Vision, the Federal Way based Christian humanitarian organization.
For three years before that, she ran the World Affairs Council of Seattle, a group of former diplomats and other cosmopolitans. That’s when she laid the foundation for the World Affairs Council of Tacoma, which continues to expand local horizons to this day.
Her long-time friend, Beth Willis, remembers it well. A 30-year South Sounder and former director at World Trade Center Tacoma, Willis worked alongside Corey to raise Tacoma’s profile as an internationally-minded community.
“We actually got Seattle people to come down to Tacoma for events, which was a significant thing because we all know how people up there think about Tacoma,” Willis told me in a recent phone call.
“Corey is a great negotiator and she looked at the big picture,” said Willis, a like-minded foreign service free spirit who recently became consul for the Republic of Seychelles, an island country in the Indian Ocean.
Now Corey is closing in on the end of a nomadic career. She’s kept her North End home for retirement, she told me, and looks forward to hanging out with her Tacoma friends at Hank’s Bar & Pizza.
Leading the Peace Corps would be a fitting capstone to her life’s work and a great achievement for Tacoma. The city remains true north on her compass, no matter how many stamps she has on her passport.
“She is ours,” Willis said. “She can’t get away from it.”
Reach News Tribune editorial page editor Matt Misterek at matt.misterek@thenewstribune.com
MORE, IN HER WORDS
Read about Kathleen Corey’s life-changing experience as a teacher in rural Liberia in the 1970s, in a News Tribune guest column she wrote for the Peace Corps’ 60th anniversary.