Robert Cavanaugh:  

Life (revised Dec. 2021) They're giving more room to write, so I'll revise this! My RHS grad photo gives my ambition as "foreign service officer." I tried, but never made it. I got a BS at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown U. in 1969, where I studied Arabic for four years. Yes, I knew Bill, or President Clinton as you might call him. Then I taught English at the American U. in Cairo, Egypt, 1969-71. I decided I'd be better off as a Canadian (!), so I moved to Toronto and got an MA and near-PhD in Islamic Studies at the U Toronto, 1971-75. I didn't pass the Arabic paper in the general exam for the PhD, so I got a B.Ed. and then taught h.s. economics and history in Kitchener, Ont. (Grand River CI) from 1975-77. I then tried to get a "business" job, but no one wanted to hire a "teacher," and I had no money to get an MBA. The fastest (legal) way to get money was to work in the Middle East. Before I left for Saudi Arabia I became a Canadian citizen. Before that I travelled on a refugee document--as the immigration officer said at Heathrow in 1975, "You don't see many white people with these." Indeed! I taught English at the Univ. of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia 1977-82. I took the Canadian foreign service test 4-5 times, the first three times before I became a citizen, so it was just for practice. I always passed the written test and went on to the oral interview. In Saudi Arabia I tried twice more, flying to Jidda to take the exam at the embassy, then flying to London each time for the interview. At this point they were only hiring 10-15 people per year. I was good, but not that good. I gave up. I returned to Canada from Saudi Arabia and got an MBA from Western Ontario, 1982-84. I worked in Toronto 1984-86 for a vaccine company (Connaught Labs) and a computer peripherals manufacturer (DataSpace, now gone) in inter. marketing. I resigned in August 1986 and was unemployed for 3 ½ long years. After 4,000+ applications (yes, I kept track on an Excel spreadsheet), I gave up on Canada, and I decided to try the US. I worked as a temp from 1988-89 in Washington DC, then returned to Toronto for another six months. During 1989 I returned to the US several times for interviews; I would try to schedule several interviews in the same week. During those trips I was basically homeless, living in campgrounds with other economic refugees. What fun! A high point was in 1988-89 in DC when I was living rent-free in a former convent turned conference center. In return for free rent I had to clean up, set the tables for breakfast, do the dishes, etc. 42 years old, 5 degrees, and doing dishes. Terrific! I had finally made it! It was at this point that my teen-age son told me he refused to take a summer job because he would have to sweep floors. I had a momentary impulse to strangle him, but it passed after several years. Finally I got a job ($28,000) with an association outside Washington in Feb. 1990 as manager of operations and research. In Nov. 1992 I switched over to the Health Insurance Association of America...Expand for more