MATTHEW Johnson joined the US Consulate as its deputy principal officer just over a year ago. A career diplomat, he has managed to carve a position for himself and his family in the community, giving his time at the Bermuda Aquarium Museum & Zoo, improving the environment by collecting bottles dumped in Harrington Sound and donating blood at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital on a regular basis. This week, he sat with Mid-Ocean News reporter Heather Wood and photographer Tamell Simons to discuss his storied career and his travels around the world.

Q: When did you first come to the island?

A: I arrived here in mid-September of last year for the first time ever.

Q: What did you know of Bermuda prior to that?

A: What every other American probably knows - sunshine, beaches, motor scooters. I served, initially, in the Foreign Service of the United States in the Bahamas. And they always said, ‘It’s better in the Bahamas’ and I was convinced having lived there that maybe they weren’t telling the whole story. I think it is better in Bermuda. And that’s why I’m here for three years - I was there for about a year and a half. You can draw your own conclusions from those times.

Q: How did you end up in your current post?

A: You do something similar to what our US military does in normal times which is, you submit a bunch of assignments, jobs you like and places you’d enjoy - in case of the Navy, which is my background. The ship you’d like to serve on, for example, or the planes you’d like to fly. And then you let your interests be known to those commands or those posts - in the case of the foreign service and you put your best foot forward and you say, ‘Here I am. I’d love to come work there for ‘X’ number of years and you’re either chosen for that or you move on to ‘Plan B’.

Q: And in your case?

A: In February of 2006, my predecessor had curtailed from here and there was an opening. It’s often tough to run a place like this without somebody who has the proper authorities. In my case I sign contracts, I certify payment vouchers so the vendors get paid on time and so on. And without somebody to do that you’re up against (a wall). So at that point, they put out an All Points Bulletin on the job. I’d been watching Bermuda from a distance, for years. I thought it was an interesting place - a small post. And the opportunity was open and I let my interest be known to the European Bureau in Washington, they let Mr. Slayton know there was a candidate, he called me early one morning in Russia where I was serving. It was about three o’clock, he woke me up and the answers he heard on the phone were apparently what he wanted to know about me in terms of my abilities and background and capacity and within about a week he said, ‘Yeah. Go ahead.’

Q: Is this a diplomatic post?

A: Oh yes. My background is in military but I’ve been in the Foreign Service in the United States for 22 years now.

Q: Were your parents involved in the military?

A: That’s a good question. I’m kind of a gypsy by nature and by upbringing. My father was an engineer for the Boeing company, which meant every two or three years we’d move. There’d be a new contract in Florida, in Washington State, Alabama - wherever. We’d pull up stakes and often that meant that the kids would go off and start school, dad would start a new job and my mother would stay behind. My mother is a phenomenal woman by the way. She had to stay behind and wrap up all the loose ends, sell the house normally, because in America, in sort of the middle-class way of looking at life, you don’t rent, you buy. So every time we moved, whether the market was up or the market was down, my mother stayed behind to sell the house. I’m used to it. I get kind of itchy feet every two or three years and so three years here will probably be the right amount of time and then I’ll move on to some other posting in the Foreign Service.

Q: You entered the military right after college?

A: Immediately after high school. I went in during the Vietnam War and I served for two-and-a-half years on active duty as a reservist - they trained people up so you had people to plug into contingencies wherever they are in the world. I got out and went to college on the GI Bill and then I went back in, in 1980 as an officer. I went to Kennedy School in Rhode Island, and was assigned to a destroyer at Norfolk, Virginia. I like the Navy as an organisation so I went twice as opposed to what might be considered a normal, one-time in and out and then you’re done with it.

Q: You never considered the Army or the Airforce?

A: Never. My father was a Navy man. He and I ended up as enlisted men doing the same thing. We were both radiomen. That was, I think, by coincidence. I’m not sure. Maybe he pulled some strings to get me a place in that class after talking with the recruiter. But we ended up as radiomen and then he did the same thing also. He was a radioman in World War II and didn’t go into actual combat during that time, he served in the occupation of Japan. And then he got out - went to school on the GI Bill and went back in during the Korean War. So I’m kind of repeating him. It’s probably pretty boring after a while (for) people watching our family - same old routine.

Q: You mentioned that your father worked for Boeing. It’s odd then, considering the company’s ties with Bermuda that your family never visited.

A: Nope. I never did. He’s been assigned to all different places. He’s been to Washington State, he’s been to Washington DC for Boeing. He himself, and my mother went for a couple of years to Sweden. They were seconded to Rymdbolaget, which is like the Swedish NASA. His purpose there was as an expert on writing proposals. When any corporation wants to get a job or a contract, they have to write a proposal. He’d been doing that for 20 years for the Boeing Company and so Boeing said, ‘Here, we’ve got somebody that can do this. You need that*?>*’ ‘Yes.’ ‘How much you willing to pay”? So I think that probably his status with Boeing continued but I’m sure Boeing pulled down some kind of a finder’s fee for spotting an executive who could do something for them they really wanted done. A few years in Sweden - they really loved it.

Q: I take it you weren’t there?

A: No. At that time I was on active duty on board the USS Briscoe. There was a funny story. When they were enduring the Swedish winter and I was in the Mediterranean, we arranged to meet in Majorca, Spain. It’s kind of a cliché, but when the first lines were thrown off the ship to the pier, my father was right there to catch them. And he really liked that. He was a real Navy man at heart.

Q: What was your first impression of Bermuda?