Working for Americansby Anita Cirulis

From the person who delivers your mail to the one willing to take a bullet for the president, the jobs of our nation’s civil servants are as varied as the people who fill them. Here are the stories of three Northwestern alumnae serving our country.

Fighting Terrorism

JONATHAN LIU

Laura Keith lives and works in Washington, D.C., where she helps conduct a roundtable series with foreign ambassadors to learn best practices for defeating terrorism.

As a 7-year-old, Laura Keith sat transfixed in front of the TV, watching the fall of the Berlin Wall. As a young teenager, she would clip photos of world events from her local newspaper and tape them to her bedroom walls.

Not surprisingly, Keith majored in political science and history at Northwestern. Before graduating in 2004, she also participated in both the Russian Studies Program and the American Studies Program through the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities. Her semester in Russia coincided with the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

“Suddenly I was having to field questions from fellow Russian students about U.S. foreign policy,” she says. “That was a really interesting and challenging time to be there.”

The final semester of her senior year she was in Washington, D.C., taking classes in domestic and foreign policy and interning with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

While Keith doesn’t work directly for the federal government, she still considers her job a public service. As a policy analyst for the Homeland Security Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., she views U.S. security through the lens of foreign affairs. Her research and writing is used in testimony before Congress and in advising the federal government.

“Our audience is policy makers within the Department of Homeland Security, the intelligence community and the Department of State,” she says.

Keith is also working on a master’s degree in security policy at George Washington University.

“Tons of people go to school for international affairs or foreign relations and are generalists,” she says. “I wanted a specific skill. I’m interested in international security cooperation. I’m interested in how to stop terrorists.”

Providing Protection

U.S. SECRET SERVICE

Rachel Klay confers with two members of the U.S. Capitol Police while working as a member of the Secret Service during President Reagan’s funeral in 2004.

Rachel Klay remembers Geraldine Ferraro’s white-knuckled grip on the Secret Service agents as they struggled to extricate her from the crowd. The Democratic vice presidential candidate in 1984, Ferraro had stepped off a plane and entered a crowd to shake hands during a campaign stop.

Suddenly Ferraro was completed surrounded, with people pushing forward in their enthusiasm to see her.

“People weren’t trying to be dangerous,” Klay says. “The danger was just a large crowd moving on its own accord. We had to lock arms and physically force our way out of there.”

A petite 5-foot-3, Klay enjoyed a successful career in what has typically been a man’s world.  When she joined the Secret Service in 1983, she was one of just 36 women in a force of 2,000. Even today, less than 5 percent of agents are women. Retired in 2007 after 23 years, she continues to use her skills—though now as a special agent in the protective services unit for the Federal Reserve Board chairman.

Klay’s interest in law enforcement was encouraged by her father, who was a lawyer, and grandfather, a U.S. district court judge. She graduated from Northwestern in 1980 with majors in psychology and sociology and joined the Secret Service three years later.

Over the course of her career, Klay protected Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, hunted child abductors and serial killers as part of a joint task force with the FBI, and served as the Secret Service liaison to the Pentagon, CIA, and legislative and judicial branches of the U.S. government.

Despite all the 10- to 15-hour workdays, she has no regrets. “I looked at it as more than a career,” she says. “It’s a service to my country.”

Representing America

ERICK DANZER

The flag of Zambia will become as familiar as the Stars and Stripes to Sara Veldhuizen Stealy, now that she is a foreign services officer in that African nation.

In February, the State Department offered Sara Veldhuizen Stealy a job. Now she’s in Zambia, serving as the assistant public affairs officer for the U.S. Embassy.

While that timeline may seem quick, Stealy first applied to the department more than four years ago. The positions are so competitive there wasn’t a question what her answer would be when the assignment finally came.

“The foreign service officers I know say it’s not just a job—it’s an entire lifestyle,” she says. “But they say it’s the most worthwhile and interesting career you can have.”

A 1998 Northwestern graduate, Stealy spent seven years in communications and marketing for a national accounting firm. In Zambia, she is working with the media and directing cultural and educational exchange programs. Her career track changed when she saw a newspaper article about government jobs. The opportunity to serve her country fit her upbringing.

“My dad was a civil servant. He worked for the postal service,” Stealy says. “He was very proud of being able to provide that service to people.”

The selection process for foreign service officers is extensive, involving a written test, oral assessment, medical and security clearances, and final suitability review. The qualifications are simple: Candidates must be U.S. citizens, 21 to 60 years old—and willing to go wherever the State Department sends them.

“In our training, they emphasized the most important word in your job is ‘service,’” Stealy says. “We’re in the foreign service, and we all officially sign on and swear that we are worldwide available, according to the needs of the department.”

For Stealy, that means a new life in Africa.