Seminary trustee spearheads reconstruction efforts in Kabul, Afghanistan

Seminary trustee David Grizzle, a Continental Airlines senior vice president, traded building strategic relationships with other airlines throughout the world, for heading transportation and infrastructure reconstruction efforts in war-torn Afghanistan in September.

Instead of following the US presidential election race on television daily, he was a body armor-clad election observer at Polling Center 211 in District 11 in the capital city of Kabul -- two voting stations with two voting booths each within an open air stall with plastic sheeting overhead -- as the embattled country held its historic first presidential election October 10.

Instead of sleeping through the night in his Houston home, he has been awakened in his embassy bedroom after midnight by a nearby rocket explosion and scurries through the walled-off compound in darkness to a designated bomb bunker as warning sirens blare.

Instead of creeping along a Houston freeway driving to and from work, he travels throughout Kabul when he must in an armored Toyota SUV with bullet-proof windows accompanied by a driver and translator and protected by bodyguards armed with 9mm Glock pistols and M4 automatic rifles.

Instead of duck-hunting and attending Boy Scout events with his youngest son, Andrew, a ninth-grader, he has to make do with staying in touch with wife Anne and their three sons by long distance telephone and high-speed internet connections.

Grizzle, then senior vice president for marketing strategy and corporate development for Continental Airlines, had a "desire to do something different at this point in my life" when he received a telephone call in late summer.

The US Department of State was looking for someone to spearhead the reconstruction work in Afghanistan and Grizzle had been recommended for the job by a Pentagon staffer who was a close friend of Grizzle's eldest son, Ben. The Continental executive who had just turned fifty was offered a one-year position of Transportation and Infrastructure Coordinator for the Afghanistan Reconstruction Group within the State Department.

"You can always find a reason not to do something that's boldly different," Grizzle points out. "I thought I might be making a mistake but, then again, I would always ask myself 'What if I had done it?'"

The serendipitous offer to travel half way around the world to a war-ravaged country "had God's hands all over it," Grizzle said. "Ben's friend knew of my desire to do something different and recommended me."

Experienced in doing business in a cross-cultural context, Grizzle is no stranger to the wider world. In the past ten years, the Harvard College and Law School graduate took Continental from two significant commercial relationships with foreign airline companies to almost 20. These business deals involved network and product integration, technology linkages, joint marketing and financial management.

Equally grounded in a life of faith, Grizzle is an active and long-time member of St. John the Divine in downtown Houston. He has served on the vestry and been a diocesan council representative and adult education teacher. Grizzle also founded Common Ground Discovery Group, an interchurch reconciliation program for parishes with differing views on church inclusiveness of homosexuals. He and his family have also done mission work in developing countries.

In a recent article, Grizzle told Carol Barnwell, editor of the diocesan Texas Episcopalian, "It has always been evident to me that God did not put us here to be acquisitive and self-serving, but to expend ourselves in service to others."

As Infrastructure and Transportation Coordinator, Grizzle is responsible for accelerating the pace of reconstruction and development to more quickly establish the foundation for a solid nation to take hold in Afghanistan. He is specifically charged with providing advice and counsel to the Afghan government about improving air and surface transportation, electricity, telecommunications and water.

Grizzle remains in contact with his wider circle of friends with a frequent email journal titled "Kabul Corporate Monk." The two or three-page, single-spaced letters detail everyday life in his new country.
"We're all working extremely hard -- 14 hours a day, seven days a week. There are tremendous opportunities, but everything is so much harder to get done than in America. I think you might give up the effort because it is so hard -- except every little bit we get done is such a large percentage increase in what was here before. If we pave the road from Herat to Mazar-e-Sharif, it's not the fourteenth lane we are paving, it's the first paved road ever!"

Another entry notes -- "One group of people who have appealed to me greatly are the Nepalese Ghurkas who protect our side of the Embassy compound. They have all served in the British Army and are the consummate warrior-guardians. But it has struck me that, whereas they are away from their families for at least as long as we diplomats, they do not have the unlimited calling card capability and high-speed internet that keeps us linked to our families. And many of them are from Katmandu, which has seen more unrest than Kabul. So pray for my protectors, that God would watch over their families and comfort these men in their loneliness."

The Kabul Corporate Monk -- read David Grizzle's journal entries

Photos from Kabul

Texas Episcopalian article by editor Carol Barnwell on Grizzle's return to Houston, January 2006 issue

Texas Episcopalian article by editor Carol Barnwell, on Grizzle's departure to Kabul, October 2004 issue