Thomas Staal has spent most of his career working overseas in international development. He has worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) since 1988, beginning in Sudan as an Emergency Program Officer. In the early 1990s he worked in the USAID regional office in Kenya, managing food aid and doing project development throughout eastern and southern Africa. From 1996 to 2002 he worked in the USAID West Bank and Gaza program, providing assistance to the Palestinians, focusing on water supply projects, as well as local community development. Between 2003 and 2004, he served as the USAID Regional Representative for Southern Iraq, overseeing all USAID projects in that part of the country. He also served as the Deputy Director of the Food For Peace Office in Washington, and he was the Director of the Iraq Reconstruction Office in Washington and USAID Mission Director in Lebanon. Mr. Staal was the USAID Mission Director in Ethiopia from 2009 to 2012, and Mission Director in Iraq from 2012 to 2013. From 2013 to 2016 he served in the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, initially as Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator and then as Acting Assistant Administrator. Following an assignment as the senior USAID faculty member at the National War College, he is currently the USAID Counselor.