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Meet
your host, Doug Barry, and today's guest:
Ronald L. Soriano
Senior Commercial Officer, Tel Aviv
Ronald Soriano has been Senior Commercial Officer at the US Embassy
in Tel Aviv since June 2005. Previously, he served as commercial
liaison at the African Development Bank in Tunis, Tunisia (September
2004-May 2005). Between April and September 2004, he served as the
US Commercial Service representative on the Iraq Investment and
Reconstruction Task Force and at the U.S. Department of Commerce’s
Advocacy Center.
He served as Counselor for Commercial Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in
Seoul, South Korea, from September 2003 to April 2004. Prior to his
assignment in Seoul, he served as Commercial Counselor at the U.S.
Embassy in Paris, France, from November 1999 to July 2003. From July
1995 to July 1999, he served as a Commercial Officer at the U.S.
Consulate in Milan, Italy. He also was a trade specialist at the
U.S. Export Assistance Center in Hartford, Connecticut (January-May
1995).
Prior to joining the U.S. Commercial Service in 1994, Soriano was
director of research at SmithMcCabe, an international public
relations firm in New York City (1993-1994). He spent over ten years
with the large Japanese trading company Mitsui & Co., Ltd. in its
Washington, DC government relations and public affairs office and at
company headquarters in Tokyo, Japan (1982-1993).
From November 1981 to April 1983, he was special assistant to the
head of the European Communities delegation to the United States.
From 1976 to 1981, he was a member of the staff of the House of
Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs (Special Subcommittee
on Investigations and Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East).
Soriano is a graduate of the University of California at Davis
(summa cum laude) and holds a master’s degree in international
relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced
International Studies. He played semi-professional soccer in
California and Washington, D.C. in the early 1970s. In 1992-92, he
was president of the Kaisha Society, a professional association of
foreigners working for Japanese companies, located in Tokyo, Japan.
He speaks French and Italian. He was born in Phoenixville
(Pennsylvania) on March 20, 1950. He is married to Ellen G. Fisher,
an educator, librarian and cross-cultural trainer. They have a
twelve-year old daughter, Arielle.
Michael
Richardson
Senior Commercial Officer, Formerly Tel Aviv, Currently Frankfurt
A career Foreign Service Officer, Michael Richardson has served in
the U.S. Commercial Service since 1991, including assignments in
Israel, Russia, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Richardson
concluded a 3-year assignment in Tel Aviv in June 2005, and is now
the Principal Commercial Officer in Frankfurt.
While the Senior Commercial Officer responsible for Israel and the
Palestinian West Bank and Gaza, Richardson and his team of dedicated
professionals provided export promotion and advocacy assistance from
the Embassy in Tel Aviv to American companies doing business in
Israel and from the Jerusalem office to those U.S. firms seeking
market opportunities in the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza.
Richardson was instrumental in creating the Access Eastern
Mediterranean Program, a Commercial Service initiative that
facilitates entry for U.S. exporters to seven regional markets.
A native of Northeastern Ohio, Richardson came to the Commerce
Department after three years of military service and 14 years of
private-sector business experience in Ohio, Pennsylvania and
Indiana. His formal education includes a BA in Economics from
Indiana State University and an MA in History from Northern Arizona
University. He is married and has three children.
Doug
Barry joined the U.S. Commercial Service, the global business solutions
unit of the Department of Commerce, in 1998. Barry has served as
an international trade specialist, helping U.S. companies enter
emerging markets in Russia and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union.
He earned his undergraduate degree from San Francisco State University
and has graduate degrees from New York University and Columbia University.
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Market Briefs --
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