My time with AMIDEAST from 2009-2021 represented both my career pinnacle and profound personal transformation. After years working in the field, I transitioned to Washington D.C. leadership, then to a regionally-based assignment, and finally to remote work after relocating to Thailand. For many years, I nurtured an interest in educational technology and had managed programs using e-learning, but it wasn't until this job that I had the opportunity to become directly involved in developing and applying it myself. My personal life also underwent equally significant changes—an amicable end to my first marriage coincided with the deepening of my relationship with Alisa, which brought both profound heartbreak and, soon after, unexpected joy.

During my three years at headquarters, I focused on developing technical components for funding proposals, ensuring quality assurance for training programs in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and creating educational technology initiatives. In 2012, after Alisa completed her master's degree at George Washington University and finished a one-year internship, she returned to new job opportunity in Thailand. This prompted my relocation to Jordan, where I served as an AMIDEAST regional director for the next three years. The remaining five years with AMIDEAST brought unexpected joys: I became AMIDEAST’s first remote employee, we bought a home in a suburb near Bangkok, celebrated our beachside wedding, and welcomed visits from family and friends from Thailand and the U.S.

My self-taught passion for educational technology drove me to design and build an e-learning portal from scratch. I managed and kept improving it entirely on my own. When COVID-19 hit in early 2020, this platform became AMIDEAST's lifeline. Starting that March, I moved more than ten thousand students from physical classrooms at 12 country offices to our online courses and trained hundreds of teachers to get comfortable with the new technology. Once the platform was up and running smoothly, I basically became the go-to expert for all things educational technology.

In the middle of these work challenges, my personal life went through huge changes. In 2019, we were hit hard when Alisa's mother suddenly passed away. Not long after that sad news, we found out Alisa was pregnant. Our daughter Anya was born in June 2020, making me a father again at 68—right when the pandemic lockdown was at its worst. It was an incredibly tough time, but also deeply meaningful. We had to care for our newborn completely by ourselves, with no help from anyone because of the lockdown, all while I was putting in 18-hour days moving AMIDEAST's programs to online learning.

I finally retired at the end of 2021, at age 69, feeling incredibly thankful. My 45-year career had truly come full circle—starting with that first teaching job in Thailand and ending with helping guide an organization through a once-in-a-lifetime crisis. What started as a random opportunity had turned into my life's path, giving me career achievements I'm proud of, a wonderful partner in Alisa, the joy of becoming a father again later in life, and the deep satisfaction of knowing my work had helped thousands of people get better education across so many different countries and cultures.

Chapter 10 Photo Collage