Alexander Zemek new Executive Director of the NatCom

Alex Zemek has been officially appointed Executive Director of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO.

In September 2004, Alexander Zemek began service as Deputy Executive-Director of the National Commission. Before joining the State Department, he worked for the Department of Defense 2002-2004, where he helped with cabinet affairs, with the startup and management of the Defense Business Board, an advisory council of private sector senior executives created by Secretary Rumsfeld, and
with managing and staffing the Department's 63 federal advisory boards and commissions. During his last year in Defense, he served in Iraq with the Coalition Provisional Authority as both Special Assistant to Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III and interim Director of Personnel.

He joined the government after some years in the private sector, where he worked as a securities trader for Heartland Securities Corporation. He also taught high school in his hometown of Tolland, Connecticut.

He holds an honors degree in history from Yale University, where he captained the cross country team, and a graduate certificate in national security studies from the National Defense University. As a photographer, he has held many gallery shows, for example an exhibit in Connecticut highlighting his life in a small village in Kenya in 1998. He maintains his distance running and is an avid traveler who has visited 45 of the 50 US states and 35 foreign countries. He
lives in Arlington, Virginia.