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The Peace Corps swore in William Bull ’85 as director of the Peace Corps program in Madagascar in a ceremony held at the Paul Coverdell Peace Corps Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Country directors are responsible for management and direction of all aspects of the Peace Corps program in their country.
An international affairs graduate with minors in French and art, Bull has worked in African development since 1985 when he became a Peace Corps volunteer. He served in Sierra Leone as an agriculture volunteer for more than three years and then stayed in the country working with Catholic Relief Services. He later worked as a consultant conducting technical training for the Peace Corps and other development agencies both in the U.S. and throughout West Africa.
Bull returned to the Peace Corps in 1999 as an associate director for the environment, managing the forest and agricultural resources projects in Gabon. In 2001, he transferred to Madagascar as associate director for the environment and was named acting country director in May 2002.
“The summer study program with Professor [Roxanne] Lalande in Poitiers, France has been very helpful,” says Bull. “I have now worked in five former French colonies and my knowledge of French and the French has come in handy. I suspect though, that Professor [Jean-Pierre] Cap and Lalande would find it ironic that I now use French as a primary working language, give speeches, etc., considering what a desultory student I was. The thorough grounding in [international] developmental theory and international economics have proven very, very useful in my career, especially now as a senior member of the American mission here in Madagascar.”
He says raising a family in Africa poses some interesting challenges but has some interesting rewards. “Having had some experience with our oldest boy stateside and now overseas, we find it easier and more pleasurable than stateside,” says Bull. “Here the concept of ‘it takes a village’ [to raise a child] isn’t simply the title of some book, it is a philosophy.”
In between his Peace Corps stints, Bull lived in Vermont, where he worked for seven years as a farm manager, counselor, senior staff, and garden coordinator for Spring Lake Ranch. He also earned a master gardener certificate from the University of Vermont.