Maumee Native Is Leading Authority On Afghanistan
BY NANCY GAGNET — MIRROR REPORTER
Tom Gouttiere’s desire to travel abroad in 1965 led to an international career and recognition as a leading expert on Afghanistan.
The 69-year-old Maumee native, who grew up working in Gouttierre’s Pastry Shop, the former bakery his father and uncle owned on West Wayne Street, moved to Afghanistan at age 25, when he was assigned there as a new member of the Peace Corps.
“I had no idea at the time it would be the biggest break in my career,” he said during a phone interview from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where he serves as dean of international studies and programs.
From 1965 to 1974, he and his wife Marylu lived in Afghanistan, where he was a Peace Corps volunteer, a Fulbright fellow, Fulbright Foundation executive director and coach of the Afghan national basketball team.
The oldest of his three sons, Adam, was also born there.
In an interview he gave to a Nebraska newspaper last month, Gouttierre said that when he lived in Afghanistan it was “quite a delightful place with good security” – in stark contrast to the nation it is today.
When he left Afghanistan to work at the university, he and Marylu had two more sons, Nestor and Edward, and his work continued in the Afghan region.
The U.S. Department of State tapped him to serve as senior political affairs officer in the United Nations peacekeeping mission to Afghanistan in 1996 and 1997.
He has also testified on Afghanistan-related topics and human rights before many different bodies including the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Com-mittee, committees of the British Parliament and French National Assembly, and the U.N. Select Committee on Human Rights.
He has conducted orientation programs for U.S. military forces assigned to Afghanistan, and in the first 10 months following the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York, Gouttierre conducted more than 2,000 presentations and interviews regarding the Afghan region.
He speaks multiple languages and has written numerous articles in a wide range of publications. He was also the project director for the development of the 23,000-word Dari-English dictionary.
In 2001 he was awarded honorary doctorate of international relations from his undergraduate alma matter, Bowling Green State University, and in April was honored as one of the 100 most prominent graduates of BGSU during the institution’s centennial celebrations.
The oldest of four children, Gouttierre grew up on East John Street.
His sister Anita O’Leary and brother Jim currently live in Toledo, and his brother Mike lives in Texas.
“Maumee was the ideal environment,” he said. “It’s the heartland and that’s what it was for me.”
He attended St. Joseph Catholic School in Maumee and St. Francis de Sales High School, where he was a member of the school’s first graduating class in 1958.
Gouttierre became a master baker following high school graduation and continued working at the bakery 60 hours a week while attending college.
“I worked from 3:00 a.m. until noon, then went to school, and on Friday nights I worked from 7:30 p.m. until noon the next day,” Gouttierre said.
“The thing that makes me most proud is that I commuted the whole time I went to college,” he said.
Bud Clark of Maumee commuted to BGSU with Gouttierre and the two have remained good friends since their childhood.
“He’s a one-of-a-kind individual. He’s a very special guy,” Clark said.
When the bakery was closed, Gouttierre would let Clark in through the back to enjoy fresh donuts and pastries.
“He is and always has been a down-to-earth great guy,” Clark said.
Lifelong friends John and Mary Beaber of Maumee visited with Gouttierre last summer when he returned here for a class reunion.
“He truly loves Maumee and he has a terrific memory. He loves to tell funny stories,” Mary said.
According to Gouttierre, growing up in the area has had a significant impact on his life and the success that he has realized in his career.
“It’s been exceedingly important,” he said. “I’m so thankful that I chose BG because not only did it provide the education, it provided mentors who spent extra time with me and made things possible for me that I could have only dreamed of.
“In the same vein that’s how I feel about Maumee. It’s the ideal small-town America environment where I have always received the interest and support from people that helped me gain the confidence, stability and development that I have today,” he said.
It was a speech about the Peace Corps given by then-presidential candidate John F. Kennedy during a campaign stop at the corner of Conant Street and the Anthony Wayne Trail in Maumee in 1960 that sparked Gouttierre’s interest in pursuing his passion to see the world.
“Marylu and I wanted to do something different,” he said. “We did not want to do what everybody does when they get out of college in terms of getting married and settling down with mortgage and kids.”