Robert Ford – Vestry Member

Robert Ford and his wife Alison Barkley began attending St. John’s    Episcopal regularly in 2019 when they moved from Vermont to Maine. In Vermont Robert and Alison attended St. Peter’s Episcopal Mission in Lyndonville. Robert was treasurer at St. Peter’s for two years, but that  congregation and its church budget were much smaller than St. John’s in Bangor. Robert has been on the St. John’s Episcopal Finance Committee for a couple years and served in 2021 as the Vestry Treasurer and in 2025 as Sr. Warden. He retired from the U.S. Department of State in 2014 after a 31-year career in the Peace Corps and Foreign Service. Among his later assignments he was a senior officer at the American Embassy in Baghdad during the war for five years, and also the American Ambassador to Algeria and then to  Syria where he directed teams of several dozen American and local staff members. He has taught international relations at Yale University since 2016. He has also been volunteers at the Good  Shepherd Food bank  warehouse box production line in Hampden. In addition, he and Alison deliver Meals on Wheels in Piscataquis County every week. Robert is probably the only Baltimore Orioles fan within 200 miles and awaits the miracle that will turn around the team’s pitching.