Skilled communicator

Mike Swanson

Being a former Artist and government-questioning Banana Slug wasn’t

enough to keep Alexis Ludwig from working as a political officer for

U.S. embassies.

A member of Laguna Beach High School’s class of 1980 who earned a

bachelor’s in literature at UC Santa Cruz and a master’s in East

Asian studies at the University of Washington, Ludwig left for

Bolivia last week to continue trying to convey the American way to

the rest of the world.

“You try to represent the United States as a force of good,”

Ludwig said. “I push things like free speech, human rights, free

exchange of information, and for the most part, people listen.

Communication creates change.”

Ludwig, who speaks fluent Spanish and French and conversational

Japanese and Malay, took the foreign service exam in 1994 after

holding a variety of jobs that included inputting text for a software

company. He said he progressed from being a government-doubting cynic

in Santa Cruz to being a full-time, post-college wanderer taking the

jobs that came along while looking for something with meaning.

In the late ‘80s, Ludwig went to Spain to teach English, and after

liking it so much, decided to do the same in Japan. A few years

later, at 31, he had a job with the government that didn’t require

his advanced degree and found himself teaching democracy in

Guatemala.

“It’s like being a perpetual student,” Ludwig said. “As much as

you teach people in other countries what America’s all about, you’re

always learning from the people you’re trying to teach.”

Ludwig said his phase of doubting the U.S. government’s legitimacy

has been useful in working for the body he doubted.

“I’ve graduated from the idea that the U.S. government is

responsible for all of the world’s ills,” Ludwig said. “It took me a

while to learn that the government makes lots of mistakes that don’t

qualify as conspiracies.”

Now, nearly 10 years into his profession as a U.S. embassy

wanderer, Ludwig has a wife and child who wander with him, and none

of them worry about not having a permanent address.

Ludwig met his wife on his first tour of government duty, in

Guatemala, the same trip on which he crossed paths with another

notable woman -- Mick Jagger’s then-wife.

“She was a politically active woman and very cool,” Ludwig said.

“I actually spent some time exhuming a guerrilla in Guatemala with

Bianca Jagger. How many people can say that without lying?”

Ludwig has taken three-year tours of different countries ever

since. He returned from Malaysia in August. He spends his one-month

breaks in Laguna Beach, spending time with his family and absorbing

the area as a visitor rather than a resident.

He said it’s always startling to see how much Laguna Beach has

changed every time he comes back.

“It’s a great place to visit, but I don’t think my father could

have bought a house here on a college professor’s salary,” Ludwig

said. “If I were 7 now and my parents were looking to buy a house, I

doubt they’d be able to do it here. But that’s the way it works, I

guess. Beautiful places get more expensive.”

Mayor Toni Iseman, who met Ludwig during his short Laguna stay,

said the job he holds didn’t surprise her after talking to him.

“I was very curious about what life is like in the foreign

service, and he certainly brought a lot of skills to his job,” Iseman

said. “He has a great sophistication and a very different view of the

world.”

Passing a written, oral and medical exam, in addition to a

background check, is all it takes to get a job in the foreign

service, Ludwig said. It doesn’t require a degree past high school,

but having a diverse educational and traveling background certainly

helps, he said.

Those interested in signing up to take the foreign service exam

can do so on-line at https://www.careers.state.gov.