SFWAF Mission
The Santa Fe World Affairs Forum aims to broaden and deepen understanding of world affairs through small, interactive, professionally led sessions on international issues for a membership of informed individuals.
Forum Membership
SFWAF members are foreign affairs specialists, scientists, artists, business people, journalists, educators, photographers, seasoned travelers and others with a zest for sharing what they know and a passion for learning more.
Current annual dues are $60 a member. Modest fees apply for luncheon sessions. Fees for symposia and other special events vary. Members play an active role in suggesting programs and by helping to recruit and escort speakers. Some members also serve as presenters, sharing new developments in their own spheres of expertise. Finally, members also play an active organizational role by serving on the Board of Directors and on vital committees.
Contact Us
If you are interested in joining SFWAF, contact us
Tell us who you are, why you would like to join us and what you think you might be able to contribute.
The membership dues are payable via the Payment Page.
Contact UsBoard Members
Pat is a retired US Foreign Service Officer specializing in public diplomacy. Pat has served extensively within Europe, Asia, and at the US Information Agency Headquarters. Pat holds a Ph.D in Political Science from the Maxwell School, Syracuse University. She is co-writer of the foreign affairs blog WhirledView. Pat is a cofounder of SFWAF.
Arvid has extensive experience in nuclear export controls, nuclear proliferation intelligence, electronic instrumentation design, and clinical medical physics. Arvid spent thirty one years at Los Alamos National Laboratory as project engineer, group leader, and program manager. His career included over 100 foreign trips for the US government on nuclear issues, especially international nuclear export control.
Joined the Foreign Service in 1995, recently leading a Provincial Reconstruction Team of 40 subject matter experts and advising a U.S. Army general in Baghdad Province. In Washington he served as Andean Counterdrug Initiative Coordinator, overseeing counternarcotics programs totaling over $700 million. A native of Massachusetts, Mr Hawkins previously headed an educational publishing company and managed training units for multinational corporations. He graduated from Harvard College and holds an MA from Yale and an MS from Rensselaer.
Jane graduated fromThe American College of Greece in Athens, Greece. She was a Peace Corps Volunteer and Peace Corps staff in Nepal, the Solomon Islands, and Kiribati. She earned a Ph.D. from Colorado State University in community college leadership. She taught mostly integrated humanities in community colleges in Colorado and served as a dean for 12 years. She has also participated in three short-term Fulbrights in Paraguay, Germany, and Thailand. Most recently, Jane directed a program for first generation, low income students at Santa Fe Community College.
William was born and spent his early years in Denver, then later attended high school in Steamboat Springs Colorado. After graduating from high school, he spent a number of years working on oil drilling rigs and mines in Colorado, Wyoming and Alaska. He resumed his education after this period, first learning German, then studying at the Ludwig Maximillians Universitaet in Munich, where he received both undergraduate and PhD degrees in mathematics. After university, he worked for a number of years in Germany, first at the Ifo Institute for Economic Research then in the Central Research Department of Siemens A.G., doing research on various problems in finance, economics, plant control and medical imaging. He then returned to the United States and spent the next twenty years doing financial and economic research at a number of different financial institutions. In 2008 he left the financial world to found, together with one of his brothers, Finnoff Aviation Products, a company that develops, certifies and sells aftermarket components for civil aviation aircraft. William is still an active researcher and has numerous publications in the areas of mathematics, economics, machine learning and statistical methodology.
Ed received undergraduate education in physics at Gettysburg College, and earned M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in biophysics from the Pennsylvania State University. His multidisciplinary scientific interests led to involvement in bioscience research, leadership and management roles at Los Alamos National Laboratory with interim postings with the Foreign Service as Science Attaché at the U.S Embassy, London, at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and at the NIH. His research at LANL focused on the international human genome project. Prior to retirement from LANL, he engaged in building collaborative programs with regional universities. More recently, Ed was a principal science and engineering analyst with a not for profit national and homeland security contractor serving multiple federal agencies and state entities.
Ambassador Vicki Huddleston, is an American diplomat with lengthy expertise in foreign, defense, and development policy. She was a senior advisor to the Secretary of Defense and led American diplomatic missions in Mali, Madagascar, Cuba and Ethiopia. In Haiti she was Chief of Party for a USAID Value Chain project. She was a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and as a Congressional Fellow worked on the staff of former Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM).
Vicki’s opinion pieces on Cuba, Mali, and Ethiopia have appeared in The New York Times, The LA Times, The Miami Herald, and The Washington Post. She is the author of Our Woman in Havana and co-author of Learning to Salsa – New Steps in Cuban Relations.
Steve Irsik, is a Board Chair and CEO of closely held businesses involved in farming, ranching, dairy production and processing, cattle feeding and private equity. Steve has served and continues to serve on private and charitable boards.
Steve has served as a Foreign Service Information Resource Officer in Cairo, Pretoria, New Delhi, Mexico City, and Washington DC. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, he worked for the Library of Congress as a Fedlink Network Program Specialist. He has also served as a consultant for the National Library of Sri Lanka. Steve holds an MS in library science from The Catholic University of America and an MA in humanities from Georgetown University. An accomplished bass-baritone, he has sung with the Delhi Chamber Choir, the Sri Lanka Symphony Chorus, Coro Melodia (Mexico City), and the Washington Bach Consort.
