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Opening Remarks at the Reception celebrating the release of the Silver Anniversary Edition of "Living in Vienna"

by Chargé d'Affaires Scott F. Kilner

Rathaus
Vienna, April 17, 2008

Councilwoman Nowak, AWA Chairwoman Goutas, honored guests, ladies and gentlemen, good evening.

Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to join you for this celebration this evening.

And it is an occasion for a celebration and congratulations to the American Women's Association of Vienna for keeping the "bible" of the English-speaking expat community here alive for a quarter of a century.

Any of you who have been involved with not just putting together a compendium like this, but keeping it up to date, know what a Herculean task it is.

We need to tip our hats in a since expression of thanks to the efforts of so many over such a sustained period. "Living in Vienna" is of course an indispensable point of reference to a much wider circle than the U.S. Embassy - or the U.S. Tri-Mission.

More and more, Vienna is an international city. I believe I'm correct in saying that, after Geneva, it has the second largest diplomatic presence in all of Europe. Added to this, the rebuilding of the old Habsburg networks since the collapse of the Iron curtain, making Vienna increasingly a hub for business and culture. Not exclusively, but to a very great extent, English is the lingua-franca of this international world. And all of these temporary residents face the same challenges of settling in to and adapted to their new environment. The creates a large pool of users.

But of course, my main concern, as Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d'Affaires of the American Embassy is the well-being of the Official American Community. And let me assure you that it is a huge concern.

Of course, all of us are sent here to do a job. But we are not card-board cutouts that can be ordered around arbitrarily and without a second thought (as nice as that would be for a Chief of Mission). We are all multi-dimensional human beings with family concerns and a wide spectrum of human concerns. The bottom line is that the happier and more settled an employee and her/his family feels in Vienna, the more productive that employee is going to be.

To demonstrate the importance, we have more than 150 employees at the Embassy and I make it a point to meet with every one of them upon their arrival. Spouses are welcome to sit in. I want to hear directly from them how their transition into Austria is going and whether there are any unmet concerns that need to be addressed.

We have a well developed orientation program, of which we are justly proud. But an Embassy cannot do everything. Inevitably, there are going to be a 1001 small nuts-and-bolts questions that every new arrival is going to have to face.

So in that context, it is truly a godsend to have a resource like "Living in Vienna." In the Embassy, we have a Community Liaison Office, known throughout the Foreign Service as the CLO. It may be an unfortunate acronym in German. But the institution, they are the nexus between the Official Embassy, and family members in every way.

And our CLO strongly recommends "Living in Vienna" to all families as a supplement and a complement to the resources of the Embassy itself.

In our orientation programs for newcomers, it is referred to constantly. So much so, I sometimes fear, that newcomers may think there is some kind of a scam going on between the Embassy and the AWA.

And in a sense there is. But not in a negative sense.

We at the Embassy view the AWA as one of our real Partners in Vienna. It is a relationship which we value and try our best to nurture.

I learned a bit of interesting history in doing homework for this event tonight. The link between AWA and the Embassy goes back to at least 1967, when the Children's Friendship Fund, founded by the American Embassy and military wives after WWII, was dissolved and the charitable functions were taken over by the AWA.

More recently our CLO tries to support AWA's many charitable activities through our own collections and contributions. Many wives use AWA as a primary networking vehicle for building ties in their new community.

Almost every previous ambassador - certainly including Ambs. McCaw, Schulte and Finley - have supported the AWA by hosting events, and or speaking to the organization. And our Public Affairs Section has partnered with AWA on public outreach and cultural events.

So this is all to say that, not only is "Living in Vienna" an invaluable resource for the Embassy, but AWA is an organization we are proud to work with. And I simply wish to say thank you so much for all that you do.

Now to close: I am going to give you a quiz:

Do you know how you should properly dispose of burned out light-bulbs in your home?

If you book a trip with a travel agent, and the services promised are not delivered, do you know what recourse you have?

If you ladies are uneasy getting into a cab with a male driver late in the evening, is there anything you can do about it? (Besides walk home.)

If you don't know the answers to any of these questions, you have not been reading "Living in Vienna" carefully enough.

No, I'm not going to go tell you the answer. Go out and buy a copy.

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