Tag Archives: Foreign Commercial Service

FCS Foreign Service Officer Lola Gulomova Killed By FSO Spouse in Apparent Murder-Suicide

June 10, 2019 By in Court Cases, Foreign Service, FSOs, Org Life, Realities of the FS, Spouses, State Department Tags: , , , , ,

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Last Friday, DC Metro Police reported the death of a Foreign Service couple in the District of Columbia (see below). Police said that preliminary investigation suggests that Lola Gulomova was killed in a homicide and that her spouse, Jason Rieff died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. They left behind two young children (also see GFM: A Fund for the Rieff Girls).

Here is Lola Gulomova’s brief bio via DOC’s export.gov:

Lola Gulomova joined the U.S. Department of Commerce as a Commercial Officer for FCS in July 2008. She became part of the FCS Guangzhou team in summer 2013. Lola covers major sectors such as civil aviation, energy, SelectUSA and others. Prior to Guangzhou assignment, Lola Gulomova served as a Commercial Officer for AIT Commerical Section in Taipei. Prior to Taiwan, Lola worked in the Commercial Section of the U.S. Embassy New Delhi Office, India. During her tenure in India, Lola took part in the U.S. Government team supporting numerous high level visits, including POTUS visit in November 2010, two visits of the Secretary of U.S. Department of Commerce, and countless other VIP visits.

Prior to becoming a Foreign Service Officer for the Department of Commerce in June 2008, Lola worked in the U.S. Embassy/Moscow as NASA Deputy Russia Representative dealing with bilateral space relations between the United States and the Russian Federation. As part of her work with NASA, Lola ensured that the U.S. Astronauts who are present on the International Space Station receive appropriate support on the ground and in the space.

Before joining NASA, Lola Gulomova worked with United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) on Katrina Aid Today programs and initiatives to ensure long term recovery for people affected by Katrina hurricane. She set up operations of Katrina Aid Today and opened the office in Washington D.C. under tight schedule and deadline and limited budget. As a result of Lola’s efforts 70% of the initial set up operations budget was saved to be rerouted for Katrina aid efforts. Originally from Tajikistan, Lola graduated from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) – Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC in 2001.

The WaPo report cited a friend who said that the two met at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in the District and that the couple married in 2000.

Congressional Records indicate that Jason Bradley Rieff, of DC, was appointed to the Diplomatic Service during the 108th Congress (2003-2004).  His name appears a second time during the 110th Congress (2007-2008) when he was appointed as State Department FSO-04 Consular Officer and Secretary in the Diplomatic Service of the United States of America in December 2007.

In the fall of 2008, during the 110th Congress, Lola Z. Gulomova, of DC was appointed to the Department of Commerce Foreign Service. In August 2012, the U.S. Senate confirmed her appointment as Commerce Foreign Service Officer Class Three, Consular Officer and Secretary in the Diplomatic Service of the United States of America. We have not been able to find other entries in the congressional record as of this writing.

OPM-sourced data online indicates that she served from 2008-2011 in New Delhi, India; 2012 in Taipei, Taiwan; and 2013-2015 in Guangzhou, China.

We understand that the couple’s first tour was in Chennai, India around 2003-2005 where Rieff served as a consular officer, and Gulomova was one of diplomatic spouses who worked in the consular section. They were posted next to the US Embassy Moscow. We don’t know the exact time they were there but as a junior officer, it would have been a two-year assignment after Chennai but before she joined FCS as a career officer in June 2008.  In Moscow, she worked for NASA, according to her online bio, as Deputy Russia Representative dealing with bilateral space relations between the United States and the Russian Federation. 

While she was listed as having worked in Guanzhou from 2013-2015, Rieff was listed as school board member of the American International School of Guangzhou in its annual report from 2016-2017.  They were a tandem couple working for two agencies, it is possible she did a two year tour for FCS while he did the typical three-year tour for State. 

In Washington, D.C., Gulomova worked as a desk officer in Commerce’s Office of Russia, Ukraine & Eurasia (ORUE). ORUE provides assistance to U.S. companies including guidance on doing business in Russia, resolving market access issues, removing barriers to trade, market strategy considerations, and connections to other U.S. Government resources. She was also AFSA’s Foreign Commercial Service representative.  

She was on Twitter but did not tweet very much; the last thing she tweeted was an FCS recruitment announcement on June 4th.  The Ambassador of Uzbekistan to the United States tweeted that Gulomova was supposed to leave on June 8th to lead her first trade mission overseas.

Rieff worked in one of the annexes of the State Department; we have not yet been able to confirm his work assignment; we understand that he worked at Consular Affair’s Visa Office. Below is the police statement of this incident:

Via DC Metro Police, June 7, 2019:

Detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Branch are investigating a homicide and a suicide that occurred on Friday, June 7, 2019, inside of a residence, in the 4300 block of Windom Place, Northwest.

At approximately 9:25 am, members of the Second District responded to the listed location for a check on the welfare. Upon arrival, members gained entry to a residence at the listed location and observed an adult male with a handgun. Officers heard a gunshot then found the adult male suffering from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. An unconscious and unresponsive adult female was also found inside the residence suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.

DC Fire and Emergency Medical Services responded to the scene and found that the female victim displayed no signs consistent with life and remained on the scene until transported to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. The male was transported to an area hospital. After all life-saving efforts failed, he was pronounced dead.

The male decedent has been identified as 51 year-old Jason Rieff, of Northwest, DC.

The female decedent has been identified as 45 year-old Lola Gulomova, of Northwest, DC.

Preliminary investigation by detectives from the Homicide Branch suggest that Ms. Gulomova’s death is a homicide and Mr. Rieff’s death is a suicide. The investigation also revealed that this incident is domestic in nature.

The exact cause and manner of death will be determined pending an autopsy to be conducted by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

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This tragic incident is starting an informal conversation within one part of the Foreign Service’s online community about domestic violence which is not talked about very much. We hope to write a follow-up post. If you have something to share, email us.

Note that the State Department previously told this blog when we inquired about sexual assault data that “The Office of Special Investigations [within Diplomatic Security] receives and catalogues allegations and complaints. Allegations are neither categorized by location nor by alleged offense.” If they’re not tracking alleged offenses like sexual assaults, or for that matter, domestic violence, how will the State Department know if it has a problem? We want to talk about that some more at some future post.

//Updated/June 10, 2019,  8:59 pm PST

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Trump Nominates Erin Walsh to be Director General of the Foreign Commercial Service

May 31, 2017 By in Federal Agencies, Nominations, Officially In, Political Appointees, Staffing the FS, Top Ranks, Trump, U.S. Missions Tags: , , ,

Posted:1:08 am ET
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President Trump recently nominated Erin Walsh, a member of the Trump’s presidential transition team and part of the landing team at the State Department to be Assistant Secretary at the Department of Commerce and Director General of the Foreign Commercial Service (FCS) (seeTrump Transition: Additional Agency Landing Team Members For @StateDept).  Her bio posted on theantiquitiescoalition.org notes that she served previously as Senior Advisor in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department (State/NEA). The White House released the following brief bio:

President Donald J. Trump today announced his intent to nominate Elizabeth Erin Walsh to the Department of Commerce.

If confirmed, Elizabeth Erin Walsh of the District of Columbia will serve as Assistant Secretary and Director General of the United States and Foreign Commercial Service, Department of Commerce. Ms. Walsh currently serves as Special Assistant to the President and Associate Director for Presidential Personnel. She has had an extensive career in the international arena in both the private and public sectors. Ms. Walsh has served more than 12 years in the Federal Government, including at the Department of State, U.S. Mission to the United Nations, and the Department of Energy. She also worked at the United Nations, serving 18 months in Bosnia, during the war. At the Department of State, Ms. Walsh was a senior advisor in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. Ms. Walsh has spent 12 years in the private sector at Cisco and Goldman Sachs. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Government and International Relations from Georgetown University and a Master of Science degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

 

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U.S. Congressman Loves Bollywood, Mistakes U.S. Officials for Indians Visiting Congress

July 28, 2014 By in Congress, Foreign Affairs, Hearings, Huh? News, India, Spectacular, State Department Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

— Domani Spero
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You’ve probably seen this last week, but if you haven’t, here is a newly elected member of the House of Representatives from Florida’s 19th district, who the Miami Herald called, the “latest inductee to the Sunshine State’s face-palming club. USAToday notes that the congressman won a special election last month to replace Trey Radel, who resigned following a cocaine bust.

Via The Cable’s John Hudson:

House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday, freshman Rep. Curt Clawson misidentified two senior U.S. government officials as representatives of the Indian government.  The two officials, Nisha Biswal and Arun Kumar, are Americans who hold senior positions at the State Department and Commerce Department, respectively.

 

The hearing was on U.S.-India Relations Under the Modi Government.  Nisha Biswal is the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs (SCA) at the State Department.   Prior to her appointment as State, she was with USAID. Previously, she also served in the House of Representatives,  as the majority clerk for the House Appropriations Committee Foreign Operations Subcommittee (HACFO) and as professional staff in the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC), where she was responsible for South Asia.  Arun Kumar is the Director General of the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service and Assistant Secretary for Global Markets, International Trade Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce. 

According to USAToday, Mr. Clawson said, “I made a mistake in speaking before being fully briefed and I apologize.  I’m a quick study, but in this case I shot an air ball.”  He has reportedly apologized to both A/S Biswal and DG/FCS Kumar according to Tampa Bay Times. On Saturday, A/S Biswal tweeted this:

 

 

Still, doesn’t that make you wonder — he wasn’t “fully briefed?”  What was he doing there?   He wasn’t listening to the introductions?  He had a “dog ate my homework” moment?  He never meet U.S. officials of color before?

Peter Beinart writes that the silly gaffe is revealing of our society where whiteness is still a proxy for being American.

He had trouble recognizing that two Americans who trace their ancestry to the developing world are really American.

In today’s Republican Party, and beyond, a lot of people are having the same trouble. How else to explain the fact that, according to a 2011 New York Times/CBS poll, 45 percent of Republicans think President Obama was born outside the United States? Is it because they’re well versed in the details of which kind of birth certificate he released and when? Of course not. It’s because they see someone with his color skin and his kind of name and think: Doesn’t seem American to me.
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There’s no point in continuing to ridicule Clawson. Everyone’s entitled to a dumb mistake. But it’s worth noting how unlikely it is that he would have mistaken an Irish-American for a representative of the government of Ireland or a German-American for a representative of the government of Germany. Throughout our nation’s history, whiteness (itself a shifting category) has been used as a proxy for Americanness. And as Clawson reminded us last Thursday, it still is.

A couple related posts that you might want to check out  —  Video of the Week: Where are you from? Where are you really from? No, where are your people really from? and  Video of the Week: “But we’re speaking Japanese” 日本語喋ってるんだけ

Maybe we’ll start a series of getting to know our official USG representatives.

As a side note, these Indian-American officials do not have it easy. When they go to India on behalf of the U.S. Government, they’re told, “It is a bad idea for the U.S. to send Indian-American diplomats here. They end up having to prove their loyalty to the U.S. more than others, and it doesn’t help us.” 

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