Andrew Weber: I've been in public service for twenty-six years, and I was in the United States Foreign Service when the Soviet Union fell apart. I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about the new embassy in Kazakhstan, and the sub-headline was, "For Diplomats Who Find Paris a Bore," and it sounded like a really interesting place to be. So, the next day, I asked my human resources officer if I could volunteer to go to Kazakhstan and serve at our embassy. So... they were desperately looking for anybody with a pulse, and had me sign on the dotted line, and then I was sent for Russian language training and arrived in Kazakhstan in the summer of 1993.