Jim Bishop was born in 1938 in New Rochelle, N.Y. He attended Holy Cross College and was later awarded A Master’s Degree by John Hopkins. He served in Washington, New Zealand and Lebanon before 25 years of assignments in Africa and dealing with Africa including ambassadorships in Niger, Liberia and Somalia. After his initial retirement in 1993 he was employed for 15 years as Vice President of the NGO coalition InterAction, where he was responsible for coordination of member activities responding to humanitarian emergencies. He returned to State in 2011 where he currently works part time.