Heather Gray Email & Phone Number

Chevy Chase Village, Md, Us

Washington, District Of Columbia, United States

As an Institutional Support Contractor, I support the East Asia Pacific division in the Asia Bureau at USAID.

San Francisco Bay Area

CAMEO was a small nonprofit organization when I was hired, and as it grew it required my role to take on more and more responsibility. My title was Program Manager in the Advocacy program, which required a wide range of responsibilities. This primarily included collaborating with a variety of stakeholders to advocate for statewide support for micro enterprise development, including working with legislative officials to create legislation and new funding streams. It also included event organizing and assisting with strategic communication. I also held a wide range of duties in the capacity building program area, where I helped to organize in person and virtual trainings, made oral presentations to small groups, managed the annual membership drive and survey, facilitated annual newsletter production, assisted in Board Meetings and taking notes, ran technical aspects of meetings, prepared reports, wrote success stories, wrote content and updated the website, assisted with grant research, and ran the internship program. All of my responsibilities required being detail orientated and working under strict deadlines.

Berkeley, California, United States

As a free lance writer for the publication, Terrain, I did a deep dive into a local steel plant's refusal to change its polluting practices, and how an unlikely team of local citizens took on the governing agency to make changes to the foundry. It was a passion project of mine, at the time my husband and I moved to California from Washington, D.C. The article can be found here: https://berkeleycitizen.org/pacificsteel/pacific26.htm

Washington, District Of Columbia, United States

As the Office for Iraq Reconstruction (OIR) was staffing up rapidly in the Asia-Near East Bureau of USAID, the institutional contracting agency International Resources Group (IRG) hired several Contractor Support and Training/Administrative Assistants to support Program Managers working on the electricity, water, airport construction, agriculture, economic and local governance, education, health and marshland sectors. My role took on a variety of responsibilities including supporting the Activity Managers, Information Officers and Work Groups within USAID, IRG, and the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) in Iraq, Kuwait and Jordan. I served as the primary staff who would greet dignitaries, answer questions from the public and detail weekly activity logs and other strategic communication. This entailed aiding in preparing fact sheets, the daily report that went to the President, talking points, and obtaining clearance for memos. I answered phones, distributed memos and secret cables, organized meetings with dignitaries, obtained visas, passports and travel itineraries. I also organized and prepared onboarding of Foreign Service Officers to attend the CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear) training prior to traveling to Iraq. Finally I collaborated with regional and functional USAID Bureaus appointed to the Community Action Program to collect and report on data from the field. All of the responsibilities entailed coordinating with different offices, agencies, government bodies, nonprofit partners and other stakeholders in a fast paced and high-stress environment.

Washington, District Of Columbia, United States

In this position I served as Program Associate under the TAACS Contract (Technical Advisors in AIDS/Child Survival and Basic Education) under the Bureau of Global Health at USAID. I provided administrative and programmatic support to the TAACS Managers while working closely with TACCS team members on budget issues, including level-of-effort, contract expenditures, and financial pipeline. Specifically I reviewed, processed and submitted expense reports, allowances, advances and reimbursement requests for non-direct hire Technical Advisors according to FAR and AIDAR regulations, in countries that spanned the globe. Additionally I held orientation meetings for new Technical Advisors preparing to post overseas as well as oversaw that all travel itineraries were within contractual requirements. Additionally I responded to the needs of the TAACS Manager, often including responding to informational requests, drafting letters/emails, taking notes in meetings, reviewing internal policy briefs, and scheduling appointments with Technical Advisors. I was charged with holding orientation meetings for onboarding new Technical Advisors preparing to post overseas, discussing HR policies as well as USAID contractual requirements. I assisted in planning and implementing the annual TAACS PHN and Education Training course, and week-long series of workshops for new TAACS and other USAID employees. I attended meetings related to USAID’s funding for health and education programs, and researched/stayed abreast of agency policies related to employment and assistance and acquisition.

Washington, District Of Columbia, United States

I served as the Research Assistant for Senior Fellow Dr. David Maybury-Lewis, who was in the process of editing the second edition of his book, "Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Groups and the State". In addition to conducting research in many areas for him, such as the Library of Congress, online sources, etc., I coordinated between the book's contributors, publisher and editor of the book - meeting all deadlines and staying on top of established publication timeline. Additionally I wrote PowerPoint slides and taking points for the final book presentation to the public. Dr. Maybury-Lewis graciously included me in his final dedication.

Washington, District Of Columbia, United States

In this position I contributed to the report "Empowering Women with MIcrocredit", published by the Summit Secretariat and presented at the Beijing +5 conference. I also engaged in quantitative and qualitative research, including calling microcredit banks throughout Latin America to collect, record and analyze data on their annual Institutional Action Plan. Finally I assisted in the development of poverty measurement indicators, and helped banking institutions begin to utilize them.

Ma, International Development Studies

Ba, International Affairs