Michael Kurasz

Experience

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  World Airways

  Mar 1981 - Oct 1985

  AIR CARGO SUPERVISOR

  • Worked with Johns Hopkins Hospital as its worldwide emergency retinal tissue dispatcher ('84-'85);• Served as operative for the Armed Forces Courier Station at Fort Meade, MD, for the dispatch of US Government classified property in containerized and palletized shipments of over 15,000 lbs to the West Coast, Hawaii, Europe and the Middle East ('83-'85).

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  All Nippon Airways

  Jul 1986 - Feb 1997

  SUPERVISOR, AIR CARGO OPERATIONS ADMINISTRATION

  • Worked as departmental auditor and budgetary control person in charge; routinely performed the research of market prices, translating solid and liquid volumes into terms of pallets, trucks and aircraft, vendor service assessment, currency investigation, customer service, contractual obligations, etc.; primarily pharmaceuticals, fresh seafood and frozen meat between its receipt from Mid-Atlantic contractor vendors, calculation of lead time for surface transportation and air delivery to points in Far East Asia;• Liaised with the Smithsonian Institution for numerous projects, including dispatch of its Cretaceous fossil collection for a two year tour of the Far East ('86-88), various art exhibits and imports of foreign purchases, including live exotic fauna for the National Zoo in Washington;• Consultant for administrative work with air-, rail- and seaway bills for international transport of goods and a working knowledge of insurance documents (Warsaw & Hague Conventions for Cargo Insurance); Show less

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  Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC) Institute

  Feb 1999 - Jan 2003

  Researcher for East Europe & Former USSR [freelance after July 2000]

  • Researched various East European corporations and financial institutions for reports to client institutions contemplating investiture in the region, indicating regional market conditions, the national economy situation and biographical profiles of their directors; wrote unbiased briefing papers, conducted customer correspondence and compiled data required by clients that frequently included discussion of issues of accounting transparency, shareholder rights, environmental care, child labor, women's and minorities' rights in the workplace and organized crime. • Was awarded responsibility as compiler of its 1999 Global Guidebook for Contemporary International Standards of Corporate Governance that assess the development of internal measures for fund use, administrative procedures, productivity, etc., for publicly traded corporations. It was the first work of its kind, anywhere, and became available through IRRC's website, www.irrc.org. Show less

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  United Nations

  Aug 2000 - Jun 2002

  BUDGET & FINANCE OFFICER FOR MUNICIPALITIES

  • Had accountability for physical asset inventory for provision of relief and emergency deliveries to outlying municipalities and minority Serb enclaves; UN-issued C Category for up to 750 kg trucks, oversaw disbursement of donorship-subsidized humanitarian goods (wheelchairs, winterization huts, cooking supplies, measles and polio vaccine, soap, dental and lice treatment provisions, etc.) to various refugee camps, also personal identification equipment to the Nekovce Blace and Stankovac stations on the border with Montenegro for ID equipment for control of returning refugees; also German forklifter’s license; • worked in a team for procurement of equipment to modernize and operate sectors of the Trepca industrial complex, which included fuel delivery vehicular equipment to remote areas, oil drilling and refining, and mining for coal and nickel-cadmium• Assisted to rehabilitate or restructure several Kosovar enterprises, including the Rugova Ski Resort near Peja, the Rahovec spirits distillery, the trout fishery Trofta in Istog, Birraria e Pejes brewery, Dheu i Bardh brick factory in Gjilan, first municipal television cabling in Gjakova and the Renault licensed Zastava auto parts plant in Peja (now defunct); last projects in UNMIK included organizing the committees for the preservation of the stalactite cave in Lipljan and the medieval architecture in old town Prizren, however both were never realized; was in charge of project procuring chlorine and maintenance equipment for the Pristina reservoir (by late 2000 much of urban Kosovo attained drinkable tap water) and city street sewer repair after years of neglected freeze damage; • Maintained accounts for salary payments to municipal employees; Show less

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  U.S. Commercial Service

  Apr 2004 - Jul 2011

  CONTRACTING OFFICER & PROCUREMENT OFFICER

  • As Contracting Officer in the evaluation of freight forwarder contractor performance abroad for Foreign Commercial Offices not located within U.S. Embassies which required General Stock and Asset Control accountability as for supplying security equipment (Account Project 3477) ensuring that they are properly secured in accordance with embassy standards, • Maintained a per capita [by American citizens] checklist per Foreign Commercial Office and as a result engaged with CIA for armoring of passenger vehicles and transport by ocean freight with courier foreign destinations; in addition acquired exposure forwarding work with: Bar code and human biometric [fingerprints, voice detection, facial or retinal recognition, DNA, etc.] equipment, bollard vehicle barricades, closed circuit television systems [often with Photron high-speed capabilities], construction materials for underground bomb shelters, 5 and 20-minute steel doors, document shredding machines, Kevlar body armor [American marine guards keep a supply at embassies], metal detectors, mylar anti-blast window film, computer UPS [unlimited power source] devices, heat and motion sensors and even common smoke detectors; inventory and warehousing of equipment supplies at larger embassies such as Paris and Tokyo. • As Procurement Officer for Human Resource oversight of expense accounts of US Foreign Commercial Officers; business ethics consultant, which included routine and daily accounting, auditing and statistical analysis; • [evolved from volunteer recruit, Jan-May ‘00] during disengagement Project of the American Business Centers (ABCs) in the former USSR so as to leave the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk ABC open at the behest of Alaskan Senator Theodore Stevens; engaged with, and wrote status reports for officials of the Senator’s office, State Department officials and staff of Ambassador William Taylor’s Office of NIS [former USSR] Coordinator, and with USAID East European Operations Manager Gloria Steele; Show less

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  U.S. Department of State

  Apr 2008 - Oct 2009

  BUDGET EXECUTION OFFICER, ANTI-CORRUPTION OPERATIVE, PROVINCIAL ELECTIONS REPORTER,

  • Assigned as PRT Budget Execution advisor for Diyala Province, Iraq, researched over 700 provincial public works projects in Arabic with translator staff for identification or evidence of bribery, misappropriation of public funds and contractual fraud;• After Jan’09 move of the US Baghdad Embassy to New Embassy Compound was assigned as PRT Anti-Corruption Operative, a new position reporting to Ambassador Stafford; created numerous referential spreadsheets for the largely computer-illiterate provincial government employee staff;• Quick Response Funds [QRF] cashier of $200,000 cash allotment for several NGO operations and in cooperation with military CERP for funding of agricultural, judicial, archeological, educational and gender-based provincial projects; Reconstruction Team worked on numerous projects: the instruction to the local population for repair on damaged water pumps in wells, canal repair, field drainage, instruction in agriculture and cattle breeding, basic household first aid, water damage repair to homes, carpentry, electric generator repair, among others; our biggest success story was the training of war widows in business partnerships in the beekeeping [today their honey has become popularly in the region, and they export their products for foreign currencies]; • Was assigned to work as PRT Elections Advisor in volatile Diyala Province, whose population ranges from Shiite Arab to Sunni Arab to Kurdish; authored weekly reports for the US Embassy in Baghdad on election-related issues during the months leading into the historic January 31 2009 provincial election; Show less

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  Defense Logistics Agency

  Aug 2011 - Mar 2014

  CONTRACT OFFICER'S REPRESENTATIVE

  • Late 2011, monitored US Kabul Embassy and Camp Eggers conferences and talks between US Armed Forces and GIRoA for the transition of security services from commercial contractors over to the APPF as ordered by Presidential Decree 62; • As Contract Officer’s Representative [COR] for DoD, almost two years embedded operative in Helmand Regional Distribution Center providing Class I subsistence to the U.S. Warfighter in up to 230 military base destination locations, many in remote accessibility;• Monitored transfer of foodstuffs & medical supplies from Port Jebel Ali, UAE, via Karachi trucked to Helmand Province and from Sharjah Airport to Camp Leatherneck; researched and managed contracts, surface transport of items from Central Asian producers; bottled water from Uzbek Nestlé, Braibanti fruit juice, Berad Agro dried fruit, Albi & Eurosnab pasta products, Bayan Sulu candies & sugar prod.;• Processed and translated Kazakh, Uzbek and Afghan customs paperwork, filed copies with the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and Afghan Customs authorities, rail transport of cargo from as far away as Latvia to border crossings at Termez and Sher Kham Bandar where physical operations entailed transfer of 20 and 40-foot containers from local to Afghan trucks; worked with movement of perishable food and medical supplies from Karachi on road through Charman for southern and through Torkham for Kabul and eastern parts of the country; accustomed to driving in Kabul and environs; • Maintained familiarity of the governing contract, remained current with training courses for work in the field, ensured that the Prime Vendor contractor performs timely and cost-effectively with technical compliance and responsiveness to logistical challenges of the work environment; compiled weekly event and statistical COR Reports;• Performed billing audits in accordance with GAO standards of accounting; supervised warehouse inventories of government furnished materials [GFM] and consumption rates; Show less