Annual Meeting 2005
The 41st Annual Meeting of
The Association for International Agriculture 
and Rural Development
June 5-7, 2005

Speakers and Panelists

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Andrew S. Natsios was sworn in on May 1, 2001, as administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). For more than 40 years, USAID has been the lead U.S. government agency providing economic and humanitarian assistance to transitioning and developing countries. President Bush has also appointed him Special Coordinator forInternational Disaster Assistance and Special Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sudan.

Natsios has served previously at USAID, first as director of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance from 1989 to 1991 and then as assistant administrator for the Bureau for Food and Humanitarian Assistance (now the Bureau of Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance) from 1991 to January 1993.

Before assuming his new position, Natsios was chairman and chief executive officer of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority from April 2000 to March 2001, and had responsibility for managing the Big Dig, the largest public works project in U.S. history. Before that, he was secretary for administration and finance for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from March 1999 to April 2000. 
From 1993 to 1998, Natsios was vice president of World Vision U.S. From 1987 to 1989, he was executive director of the Northeast Public Power Association in Milford, Massachusetts.

Natsios served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1975 to 1987 and was named legislator of the year by the Massachusetts Municipal Association (1978), the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (1986), and Citizens for Limited Taxation (1986). He also was chairman of the Massachusetts Republican State Committee for seven years.

Natsios is the author of numerous articles on foreign policy and humanitarian emergencies, as well as the author of two books: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1997), and The Great North Korean Famine (U.S. Institute of Peace, 2001).

Natsios is a graduate of Georgetown University and Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government where he received a master's degree in public administration.

After serving 23 years in the U.S. Army Reserves, Natsios retired in 1995 with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He is a veteran of the Gulf War.