Board of Directors

Dave first joined the Peace Corps as a Volunteer in 2011 – serving for 2 years in Fiji. His site was Nakabuta, a rural village in the Sigatoka valley. As a volunteer, he worked with his village community on income generating activities related to tourism – educating visitors with cultural demonstrations and the making of traditional pottery by the women in the village. In nearby Sigatoka town, he worked with local government organizations on financial management assessments and training programs.

After his COS (close of service) in 2013, Dave was fortunate to return to Fiji as the Director of Management and Operations (DMO) for Peace Corps in Suva from 2014-2018 – supporting volunteers on a journey he so recently experienced himself. His other posts included Sri Lanka and Tonga.

Before joining Peace Corps, Dave spent 20 years working in nonprofit financial management and operations for a variety of foundations and NGOs including the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the National Park Foundation, and Media Matters for America. For most of those years, he lived in Washington, D.C.  He has recently returned from overseas to his hometown – Baltimore.

Joe Wall, 67 (retired), served as a PCV Management Planning Advisor with the Ministry of Fijian Affairs in 1993 in Suva. Prior to service my career was in large banks and manufacturing companies leading development of new systems/products and procedures targeting increased effectiveness, productivity and expense control. Returning from Fiji I put the entrepreneurial skills I taught to the test and started an intentionally small tech practice in Washington, DC. We built network and internet based business solutions for a range of clients both in the US and internationally. I hope to bring my business acumen and a strong sense of teamwork to work with Board Members.

Jim Reierson was a Fiji PCV in Group XVII. He taught Physics in the School of Natural Resources at the University of the South Pacific in Suva from 1973 to 1975 and helped set up satellite communications for USP distance learning. At close of service in 1975 Jim and Polly were married in Suva and then settled in Arlington, VA. Jim is a founding member of Friends of Fiji. He is a retired physicist/engineer.

Jay was a Fiji XXI volunteer in 1974 through 1976. He was assigned to the Architects Section of the Public Works Department in Suva, where he worked on projects for the Ministry of Health, including some rural nursing stations, and the maternity wing at CWM hospital. Jay met a young island beauty named Joanna Kleimann in Suva and they married in 1977. Work has taken them from California to the Marshall Islands, Japan, and finally to Annapolis MD. Jay served as President of Friends of Fiji in 2017 & 2018. He retired from the Department of Veterans Affairs DC headquarters in 2018.

Seokmin Kim served as a Youth Empowerment Worker from 2014-2016 with Group 91. With the Community Health Empowerment Project (CHEP), he focused on health education and capacity-building. He worked at Nadarivatu Primary School in Nadala Village (Nadarivatu District) and is currently getting a Masters in Environmental Management from the Nicholas School of the Environment with Duke University at Durham, NC.

Peace Corps has played an integral role in my life for nearly five decades now. Having served as a PCV in Fiji (1976-1978) in non-formal education, I went on to get a teaching credential in vocational education in the US, working with kids who didn’t quite thrive in a formal educational system, until returning to Fiji in the late 1980’s/early 1990’s. My husband went on staff in 1992 and, in addition to working for USAID, I became Mama Deb. His CD career kept us in Fiji 1992-1998, then on to Suriname from 1998-2000. “Time in/time out”, we spent three years working with At Risk youth in Southern California, adjacent to several Native American Reservations, and migrant camps. Returning to Peace Corps in 2008, we served in Vanuatu for three years, then finally in Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa for the last five before retirement. I had the best job ever, Mama Deb! With absolutely no decision-making/policy-making/enforcing role, I was able to support the Volunteers in a very unique and intimate way. Eddie never asked and I never told; it was the perfect partnership!

I am 59 years old and originally from Fiji, from the Rewa Province, but grew up in Lami, Suva and moved to the US in 2022 after visiting my daughter here a few times. I learnt about Friends of Fiji through my daughter Esther, and her husband Gerald. Gerald served in Fiji with group 88, in Mataso Village, Rakiraki, in the Ra Province.

My interest lies in FoF’s continuous support through funding projects in Fiji. I did something similar in the 7years working for St. Vincent de Paul Society (SVDP) in Fiji where while managing 2 special shelter facilities, I also worked on a few other projects where we had to find and secure funds, disburse the funds for approved projects, and report back to both the local and international donors.

I had the opportunity to work for the Government employees Union before becoming a Government employee myself. I then worked for Tebbutt Research, an Australian based market research company after which I joined SVDP, and in 2015 I joined Lami Kava Limited, the most famous kava company in Fiji as their Export Sales Manager.

Anne Baker served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Fiji group 56 from January 1985 until December 1986, then trained Fiji group 62 through January 1987. She was in the Education program, teaching Form VI physics and maths and Form V physical science at Lomaivuna High School (Naitasiri, Viti Levu). Anne moved to the Washington, DC area in 1996 to take a position with National Peace Corps Association, where she just retired after 25 years, most recently as Vice President. She started the Peace Corps trend in her family; six additional members/spouses over three generations have since served as volunteers, including her partner, father, stepmother and niece (who is also the daughter of RPCVs). Anne is a founding member of Friends of Fiji.