This Week’s Speaker
Jim Barnhart, Sr Director of Agriculture with AE Austin and former Acting Ambassador to Jordan, Albania, and Lebanon (Oct. 22nd)
Presentation Title: Perspectives on the Middle East Conflicts
Jim Barnhart is currently the Senior Director for Agriculture with JE Austin, an international consulting firm. He also serves as an External Advisor to McKinsey and Company. Jim has nearly 40 years of international and domestic development experience. He spent over two decades at USAID, living and working across the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia—overseeing programs in agriculture, economic growth, education, and water security. As Mission Director, he led USAID teams in Jordan, Albania, and Lebanon, and regularly served as Acting Ambassador and Acting Deputy Chief of Mission in Jordan, Albania, and Lebanon. Jim finished his diplomatic career as the Assistant to the Administrator, guiding the USAID Bureau of Resilience and Food Security during the pandemic and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. He served as Co-Deputy Coordinator of the US Government’s Feed the Future Program, retiring as a Career Minister in the Senior Foreign Service. Most recently, Jim performed the role of Executive Director at Oxbow Farm and Conservation Center, outside of Seattle, where he guided work in salmon-safe organic farming, riparian restoration and preservation, and experiential education programs. Jim has a Ph.D. in Economics from Georgia State University, a Masters of International Relations from SAIS/Johns Hopkins, and a Bachelor’s degree from Furman University.
About Bellevue Rotary
Founded in 1961, the Bellevue Rotary Club is an organization of local community and business leaders who make a difference by serving the citizens of our city and the world. Our primary avenues of service are Community Service, International Service, Vocational Service, and Youth Service.
Bellevue Rotary’s Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
The Bellevue Rotary Club unequivocally embraces Rotary’s intolerance for racism. We believe in promoting respect, celebrating diversity, demanding ethical leadership, and working tirelessly to advance peace as central tenets of our work. We recognize we have more work to do to create a more just, open and welcoming club for all people. We acknowledge and support Black humanity and its value. We acknowledge the sadness, anger, mental and emotional exhaustion, and trauma that our African American members and other people of color continue to experience. The Bellevue Rotary Club understands its responsibility towards truth, equity, and social justice, and will work with our members to dismantle any and all forms of systemic racism within our Club. To do this, we will carefully look at our Club’s culture, policies, partners, and the work we do in our community as we work to improve ourselves first. The Bellevue Rotary Club will also work towards being an anti-racist club in alignment with our long history and value of serving humanity.
Bellevue Rotary Officers and Directors, July 2023–June 2024
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