2010 LGBT Pride Month: Clayton Bond and Ted Osius

2010 LGBT Pride Month: Clayton Bond and Ted Osius

Clayton Bond and Ted Osius met in Washington, DC, in 2004, at a monthly business meeting of Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies (GLIFAA) – the officially-recognized organization representing the concerns of gay and lesbian personnel and their families in the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Foreign Commercial Service, Foreign Agricultural Service, and other foreign affairs agencies and offices in the U.S. Government. Ted was then the deputy director of the Korea desk and Clayton was a watch officer in the Department’s 24/7 Operations Center. They were married in Vancouver, Canada in June 2006 and had a commitment ceremony in Ted’s home state of Maryland the following month.

Ted is Deputy Chief of Mission in Jakarta, Indonesia and Clayton is assistant general services officer in Singapore. From 2006 to 2009, they were posted together at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, India, where Ted was the Minister Counselor for political affairs and Clayton was first an assistant cultural affairs officer and, later, a general services officer. Prior to that, Ted served as Embassy Bangkok’s regional environmental affairs officer, and as senior adviser on international affairs to Vice President Al Gore, with a portfolio encompassing Asia, international economics and trade issues. He also served in the Philippines, the Vatican, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, and Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Clayton served previously as a recruiter for the State Department, covering the Southeast U.S., and as a consular officer in Bogotá, Colombia.

Ted wrote "The U.S.-Japan Security Alliance: Why It Matters and How To Strengthen It" (published in 2002 by CSIS/Praeger). He earned his B.A. from Harvard University, and his M.A. from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. He edited and researched "Let’s Go: Israel and Egypt", "Let’s Go: Greece", "Let’s Go: Italy", and "Let’s Go: Europe" while an undergraduate.

Clayton has a Master’s degree in environmental change and management from the University of Oxford, where he was a Fulbright Scholar; a Master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government; and a Bachelor’s degree in political science from Hampton University.