Peace Corps and Its First Year Back in Indonesia

Following the signing of the memorandum of understanding between the Governments of Indonesia and the United States establishing a Peace Corps program in December 2009, Ken Puvak was officially named Country Director starting in January 2010.  He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) from 1980-82.  Ken returned to Peace Corps in 1988 as Director of Management and Operations in Tanzania.  He then served as a Director of Programming and Training in Zaire and Cameroon from 1990 to 1993.  From 1993-95, he opened the Peace Corps program in Zambia as Country Director.

In 2005, Ken returned to Peace Corps as Country Director in Botswana and in early 2007, he transferred to Kenya in the same capacity and guided the program until August 2009.

In the private sector, he worked as the director of international affairs for the Washington, D.C.-based American Council of Engineering Companies, an association of more than 5,000 U.S. engineering firms. He also spent two years in Lebanon with Mercy Corps, a U.S. relief and development organization; and in Bhutan, with the United Nations World Food Programme.  Ken graduated from Penn State with an undergraduate degree in political science in 1979 and from the University of Pennsylvania with a master’s degree in government administration in 1984.

With Commentator Suzie Sudarman, Director  American Studies Center Universitas Indonesia

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