Andrew Bisson

With a keen understanding of how livestock farmers think and what drives their decisions, Andrew Bisson, BVMS, MS has made a career out of working with livestock and their owners in some of the driest, challenging environments our planet has to offer. After a stint working as a mixed animal practitioner in North Wales, Andrew returned to school for a master's degree before beginning his international livestock development career with a posting in Jordan. A crash course in cultural competency with some soul searching, since then Andrew has worked for major international organizations including the FAO, Mercy Corps, and USAID. With experience working on Rinderpest eradication, Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, and a wide variety of livestock for development interventions, Andrew proudly calls himself a generalist. Now living in Washington D.C, we were glad to catch up with Andrew and hear his truthful perspectives on the ups and downs of working in the international development sector and how love changed his career trajectory.

Veterinary School & Year Graduated: Glasgow University, 1991

Additional Degree: MS, Tropical Veterinary Medicine, Edinburgh University Veterinary School, Centre for Tropical Veterinary Medicine, 1997

Questions and Answers

Tell me about your most challenging and rewarding veterinary jobs or work experiences.
When I started working as a veterinarian, I went out into the North Wales countryside without a real background in farm life which was quite a shock for me. I was in a very Welsh nationalist area and a lot of people spoke English as a second language. Some of the farmers I worked with were suspicious about working with a young English veterinarian, which created some significant challenges. With time, I formed some strong friendships with the Welsh farmers. Understanding and getting inside the minds of those farmers was a really important take away from that job. For my first overseas post, I was accepted onto a DFID associate professional officer scheme. I was expecting to be sent out to a country with a lot of livestock like Kenya, Mongolia, or Botswana. I was sent to Jordan in the Middle East, which I had misinformed feelings about because of the depictions of the Middle East on television at the time. It turned out to be an amazing country. I arrived at the airport and I was driven out by the project manager. The surroundings started off pretty dry and the further we went it got drier and drier. The trees disappeared, the bushes disappeared, and it was just a stone desert. There were no animals at all, let alone livestock. I got dropped on an old pumping station that had been taken over by the Jordanian army. This was a long way outside of my normal experience. There was no livestock, I was on a military base, a long way from home,I didn't speak the language, and I was the only Brit around. I didn't have a strong understanding of the Bedouin culture and pastoralism as a production system, which was a bit of a shock. Gradually, I learned a tremendous amount from the team that I was working with and from the farmers themselves.

My confidence grew as I was able to absorb and understand a radically different livestock production system. Over time, I started to make an impact and the situation went from challenging to very rich and interesting and outside of my past experiences. One of the brilliant things about working and living overseas, is that you become a little more understanding of your own culture. Only when you step outside of your own culture are you forced to work out the context that you're in and reflect on the differences between cultures. We were able to develop a community based animal health program and we changed the way livestock were being managed and handled with noticeable success. One of my lasting memories of that place was from this big tomato growing operation. They were producing tomato paste, but all of the pulp and waste product was being left on the ground. We made a deal with the tomato factory and they basically gave it to us for free. We set it out on giant pieces of tarpaulin to dry and had women's groups drying, bagging, and selling it. The tomato drying also helped create a more colorful landscape while making a good living for the women in the groups. That is a very colorful and strong memory for me.

Another great experience came when I was working in South Sudan on the Rinderpest eradication campaign, which was embedded within a community based Animal Health Worker Program. There were about 20 NGOs, each implementing their own community based animal health approaches around South Sudan and Sudan, which were one country at the time. They were in the midst of a civil war with considerable standoff between the two countries. It was a classic livestock country, very green with lots of water, but also quite rudimentary with no roads, very few schools, and no electricity. We were there making a big difference to some very poor people and improving the central asset of their livelihoods by making it [livestock] more secure and less disease prone. There were challenges and hazards but I was working with some remarkable people and hardcore humanitarians who had a rich understanding of the Sudanese culture. The job was full of adventures like flying into extraordinary landscapes because there was no road access. Seeing how the animals lived there, covered in ash and gathered at the watering holes, was incredible to witness.
What did you love about the position or experience?
My rule has always been if I didn't love it. I wasn't going to do it. Every job I've had really felt like it was making a difference and intellectually challenging. I love meeting fascinating people and working in incredible places. It's always been great to have these project goals in front of me; it's highly motivating. I love learning about people and cultures and why people keep livestock. The role that livestock play in the Sudanese culture is just fascinating to learn. You learn about their lives in the broadest sense, about their food systems, the culture, the language. There is an endless amount of learning and I’ve always had a thirst to learn and understand more. I think a lot of ways they teach us to think in veterinary training on the individual animal level can be applied to the macro population level. To make a [livestock development] program work, you had to consider people's livelihoods, their motivations, the political system, the geography and the landscapes.
Tell me about your journey to get to this point in your life.
My career path has been sneaky and there was no guiding vision of where I would end up. I started veterinary school as a suburban kid with no background in farming or veterinary medicine in our family. I went off to Glasgow University at a wonderful time with a great group of people. I always had an interest in Africa; I did my veterinary internships there and managed to go a few times. That gave me a flavor of Africa, allowed me to question what I really wanted to do, and got me thinking more about the development side of international work. When I qualified, I went off to work in North Wales as a veterinarian. I think I subconsciously chose North Wales because it was smallholder based and much closer to the farmers in a beautiful part of the world. My plan was to stay for a year or so. I wasn't quite sure if clinical medicine was for me in the long run, but I wanted to at least try. I loved it. It was such a wonderful part of the world and I really enjoyed working with sheep, small scale dairy, and some small animals. Every year as the time to apply to masters programs came up, I just couldn't do it. Eventually, with clenched teeth, I left and went back to Edinburgh.

I went back to school because it was clear that I needed additional training to do overseas international development work. At the time, they didn't want technocratic people, they wanted development specialists. But I was technocratic, I had a veterinary degree. I completed a degree in tropical medicine at the CTVM where I fell in love with epidemiology. The program also honed my ability to be a generalist and work between sectors. That skill set has been proven really useful. After my time in Edinburgh, I got my job in Jordan. I had no idea what I was getting into. The project was evaluated by people who were working on rinderpest eradication. My parts of the project were making progress so I started working on the rinderpest eradication campaign covering Sudan and South Sudan. That was very interesting because only a few of us were able to cross the lines and travel between the two sides were at quasi-war with each other. I learned about the UN system, the diplomacy behind it, and the challenges.

After that, I went to Ethiopia, where I met my wife, where she was managing a health project. I moved to Ethiopia and managed a livestock project there for a few years. She got a high level position in Senegal so we traveled there and lived in Senegal for a year and a half. Then the whole avian influenza crisis started to kick off in Southeast Asia. I got back in touch with some colleagues from FAO and went to work in Vietnam as part of the Emergency Center for Transboundary Disease, based in Hanoi. It was a tremendous experience in a fascinating country. It was a useful experience to see a country that has gone through its agricultural transformation and is transitioning into middle income status. Some of the countries in Africa are at the entry point of that transformation. To see these countries at different stages in their development and understand what they're going through was quite helpful for my mindset. I did that for nearly four years and then our family started to grow. When our third child was born, we moved to Florida to take a breath. We did some consulting work. Then I started to work for an NGO in the DC area, Mercy Corps, as a livestock advisor. It’s a great organization with lots of very sharp minds. I learned a lot about systems thinking and market system development.

Most recently, I made a shift to work for USAID in what is now the Bureau for Resilience and Food Security as a livestock advisor. My job covers a whole raft of topics, especially regarding food security. I’ve had no clear career plan, other than to keep doing stuff that was interesting. Now I feel I'm in a good position because I’ve had a lot of varied experiences that help me understand perspectives of different stakeholders, their systems, their cultures and how we can all work together.
As a veterinary student, did you ever imagine yourself taking this journey and having these professional experiences?
I always imagined having these sorts of experiences. It was a hard decision to become a veterinarian, because almost all vets went into veterinary practice at the time. I was interested in being a veterinarian, but I was also really interested in working overseas. So, I was a veterinary student that wasn't 100% convinced that I wanted to be a veterinarian for quite a long period of time. When I actually became a veterinarian, I loved it and all my doubts were reassured. Back in high school, I had a biology teacher who would show us short movies about parasite control and schistosomiasis control in Africa. I remember that having a really deep impression on me. These films were often looking at problems and situations in Africa and I think subconsciously that got inside my head. Even after I got into vet school, that seed was still sown. However, I couldn't possibly imagine that it would work out this way. I never thought I’d be sitting here, just outside of Washington D.C., married to a beautiful American woman, with three kids, working for the American government. But I always figured I'd be working overseas.
In retrospect, what do you wish you’d known as a veterinary student or early in your career?
I’ve made a ton of mistakes, but I don't know if they would have made me do anything different in vet school. I love the path that I took and it allowed me to have this great stint as a veterinarian in practice. If I'd known how much fun my current career is, I might have been tempted to go straight to Edinburgh. That would have been a mistake because some of the most fun things I've done and most incredible people I’ve met were in that North Wales community. That experience developed me in a way that can't be taught at university. I then took that experience into my professional life and personal life over the subsequent 20 years.

I wish I'd known a bit more about work life balance. I think that some of that started in vet school, working too hard. It never stopped and will likely be a lifelong issue. When I worked overseas, it was all career and technical. I didn't think about myself and the rest of my life outside of work. Living and working overseas for a long period of time can also change your life trajectory. When you start to work overseas, you lose a bit of the control in your life because you're not around people from your society. You have to keep an eye on your personal life and trajectory. Sometimes if you go overseas it can change your life trajectory in a way that you might not be able to change back. It has worked out amazingly well for me, but it’s something to be aware of. I always thought that I could fall back on being a vet, as it’s a solid and steady job. Working in development, I was bouncing from job to job and there was always that fear that there isn't going to be that next job. Also, a lot of the higher-up jobs become more administrative or advisory and less hands on with animals and farmers. It kind of crept up on me that I couldn't go back to being a vet without going back to school.

I got lucky with how my path ended up. I think it was important to stay flexible and follow opportunities, but at the same time, I could have been more structured with figuring out my plan. Knowing that to some extent I had veterinary practice as a safety net allowed me to go after opportunities that were outside of my comfort zone. It wasn’t until I got my job in Vietnam, about 10 years outside of clinical practice, that I felt like a full blown livestock specialist development worker. I had considered volunteering or working part-time at clinicals while I worked internationally, but that seemed like too much to juggle for me. That safety net became less important as I became established in my international livestock development career. I was a little sad when I realized that I wouldn't calve a cow ever again. Clinical medicine provided relatively instant feedback with the farmer directly involved. Development moves at a glacial pace and that can make it feel less rewarding. We have to remind ourselves that we are doing good things.
Would you have changed anything about your time in veterinary school?
I would have passed microbiology! I wasn’t able to go internationally during one of my summers because I failed micro. I also would have made it less rote learning, which contributed to my failing of that course. Overall, I had a fantastic time. It was awesome. I got to learn with a great bunch of people and play sports. I maybe worked a bit too hard, but I wasn't the brightest kid in the class, I can tell you that much. Maybe I should have worked smarter and not harder. I learned a lot of stuff I never used, but it was hard to know which bits were going to be relevant.

My current work involves a lot of social science, political science, things like that. It would have been very useful to have exposure to that in vet school, but it wasn't really an option at the time. In an ideal world, I'd have done some social science and ag economics courses. I'm still not formally trained in those subjects, but I see the utility of them all the time. There was also one year that I stayed in someone's attic because I ran out of money. I wish I would have borrowed money and stayed in a room. It was very kind of those people to help me out, but I should have just borrowed money.
Would you have changed anything about your time since graduating veterinary school?
No. There was a time when I was working with the FAO and my career path could have tracked into working in Rome, which would have been incredible. I missed out on that a bit, but I had a better option. I met a beautiful woman and married her and that took me in a different direction. That was a trade I would make any day over and over again. At the time, it didn’t feel like the most strategic career option, but [in hindsight] maybe it was. I got to be Chief of Party for a project in Ethiopia, which put me on USAID’s radar. It spun me in a different direction, and here I am today. There isn't a single right career trajectory, it's a ribboning path of different things. It's nice to have some sort of broad direction, but maybe if you’re too hung up on the destination, you may miss out on a ton of opportunities along the way. My philosophy was to accept a bit of meandering as long as I loved the opportunities I got to explore. It's not something I gave a real huge amount of thought to. Oftentimes that weren't a ton of opportunities in front of me, there was just this one good thing. Being opportunistic definitely helped out and worked for me.

I do wish that I'd learned a language. I learned Arabic poorly, and then I learned French poorly. To work for the UN system, you are now required to speak a language at a functional level.

My language skills are good for breaking the ice with people and people appreciate me trying, but I can't actually function in French. I’m a bit embarrassed about it, but I guess I was busy having a good time, working hard,and learning about something else. Learning a language is something I would have changed.
Did you have any mentors or role models along the way that helped or inspired you? Please provide an example of how they helped you or what qualities they had that made them a good mentor? How did you find them?
I've never had a formally assigned mentor, but in every single position I've had, there have been people around me who were hugely influential and influenced my career massively. I've had an enormous number of informal mentors. I make a point to understand and listen to all of the brilliant people around who are across the spectrum in terms of styles, cultures, and nationalities. Specifically, my colleagues at Tufts University, who I met while working in East Africa, were very influential and kept me on the straight and narrow in terms of how their program was run and the principles that underpin that program. At that time, I wasn't deeply understanding of participatory approaches, to the point of being doubtful. They taught me the value of that approach and really influenced and shaped the way I think about policy processes.

Also, my boss when I first worked in practice was great. You leave vet school and don't know what you're doing. I couldn't even find the farms. She never got upset, she was very supportive, very matter of fact, and down to earth. She helped my confidence grow tremendously at a time when I could have lost all confidence. I felt like a valued member of the team. I’ve also had several bosses in the UN system who were helpful in terms of understanding bureaucracy. They’d take me aside from time to time and help me figure out how to navigate bureaucracy. I'm not great at bureaucracy, but I've learned to live and work with it. I had one boss who was a perpetual optimist and I learned a lot from him. He was always so positive. My wife has the same very sort of positive influence. I wasn’t like that naturally, I was a bit whiny, but when people are positive enough, they bring others with them. Maybe they didn't mentor me on it, but they modeled that behavior really effectively. I've worked with several technically brilliant people who I've learned from. I've met a dazzling bunch of distinguished Animal Health livestock production development professionals over the years, and each has imparted a little bit of wisdom. Now I have a good armory of tools and approaches. Also, the farmers I worked with all had different skill sets that I got to learn from. I also had wonderful colleagues in Vietnam. They kept the foreigners straight on what was and wasn't working and the political backdrop to some of our projects in the most gracious of ways. It was always done in mutual respect. We were learning from each other. In several of the countries I worked in there were people within the UN system working in different sectors that understood the system and development theory and shared that knowledge with me. They had a rich understanding of the political economy and of the country or the culture. They started as social acquaintances that became good friends. To be honest, my mom and dad have also been major influences, outside of my professional world, in terms of the way they approach their jobs.
Tell me about any pivotal moments or key turning points that shaped your career.
During one of my internships, there was a strike going on at the university that wasn't the safest thing. There was a moment when I probably should have just gone home, but I stayed to finish the project. I remember sneaking around campus with a curfew in place, trying not to get caught by the police. At that point, I accepted a certain level of excitement and danger. I became a risk taker. Another pivotal experience was when I was working in Jordan and they put me in charge of the community based animal health program. I took two young Jordanian guys under my wing. We worked really well together and had a nice bond. We spent long hours in the car together everyday and there was a moment where we took each other into each other's confidence and we trusted each other. The project was successful because of that. It was a small project in the big picture, but it was a successful project that made a difference. That was also the project that got picked up by the Tufts colleagues when they came to evaluate it, which led to a big turning point in working on the rinderpest eradication project.

A moment of pride for me was when I was working in Vietnam and there was a lot of pressure on trying to improve biosecurity and dealing with smallholder poultry flocks. Initially, as a new incoming person, I was saying something that was at odds with the government policy, and they didn’t love that. I stuck to my guns and I made a big effort to understand their perspective and spend time with them. Initially, I felt like I wasn't achieving very much, apart from building this relationship. In time, that relationship grew and there was a lot more trust and we worked together much better and started to really make a difference and move in the right direction. At the end of my position, they presented me with an award, Distinguished Service Medal for Agriculture. It wasn't something they gave out to foreigners very often. That was quite a moment of pride and a feeling that we managed to work together. Development work is a series of small steps, each one gradually moving towards progress. At the moment, we have been working on setting up a One Health working group. I think this is going to play out to be a huge thing.
Tell me about one or two challenges, setbacks or obstacles that you faced along the way on your professional journey. How did you address those?
I’ve worked in so many different places, some of them not on the favorite countries list. Getting security clearance with USAID was certainly a challenge. In general, development is a game of Chutes and Ladders. You're always three steps forward, one step back. There are lots of little setbacks. Things like great colleagues leaving or some counterparts in the ministry being moved or rotated or retiring. I’ve also had several personal challenges. The isolation of living in Jordan was tough. I had to do some soul searching to try and figure out if it was something I could live with. Maybe you have a couple of bad days, but then you have to think about how to change it, how to make friends. I spent long periods of time drinking tea with taxi drivers. It worked, and gradually I started to make some acquaintances and things changed. When we lived in Senegal I struggled. It was hard to find work. I’d had a pretty good career so far, and I’d never worried about being unemployed. I went to Senegal, a fantastic place, but I didn't speak French well enough to work in French. I couldn't even volunteer with NGOs, they didn't want me. That was hard because it undermined my own confidence and made me doubt my own abilities.

One of the day-to-day challenges that we face now as humanitarian actors has been becoming a target in many countries. That has basic safety implications and affects your ability to get on the ground, meet with farmers and understand the true perspective, which means you can’t do your job as well. It has changed the nature of our work. It’s a sad thing that somehow humanitarians are perceived as doing something bad or are not welcomed by the local population. It's an insidious challenge and it's an ongoing one that we all struggle with and is really hard to overcome.
What was the most important lesson you learned as a veterinarian, and still remember today, and would want to tell vet students about.
Do the stuff that you're interested in. If you're passionate about your work, you're going to keep wanting to do it and you're probably going to be good at it. We're all smart, there are no dull veterinarians. Do something that really motivates you and that you're passionate about. If you go into international development, animal health is not the only answer. There are so many other elements to watch. You need to understand the social side of things, stakeholder driven approaches, and the social sciences. Listen to other colleagues and surround yourself with people who have those skill sets if they don’t come to you naturally. Be wary of simplistic solutions and technocratic solutions as a standalone. You can have an amazing vaccine that won't do anything unless there's an effective delivery system. It's actually easier to do biotechnology development than it is to get people to deliver it in a low resource setting. Another general concept that I think is very interesting and useful is systems thinking. It’s a useful way of digging deep into understanding a lot of today's complex challenges and problems and how solutions might play out.
What’s been the biggest highlight of your career so far?
Being associated with rinderpest eradication was great. I had a very minor role in that, but I contributed. It's the only animal health disease that's been eradicated and I reflect on that every now and again. Also, the progress that we made in Vietnam and Jordan was great to see. It made a big difference to the farmers. Before that, passing my final veterinary exams was a tremendous achievement. I was not the best student and to just get through the whole thing was a big moment. Then there are all of the smaller highlights like successfully completed workshops, smart program designs, and beating epidemiological predictions. It’s been a very rewarding journey with multiple highs, a few lows, but you expect that in development. One of my absolute biggest career buzzes was after my very first cesarean on a cow. I was feeling good about myself after that.
Is there anything else you’d like to tell me that you think would be helpful or relevant to veterinary students or early career veterinarians?
This kind of work is not for everybody. When I talk to people who want to do it but haven't started, I'm not convinced that they fully understand what it will actually be like. This isn’t clinical medicine - you’re not just going to go out to the field and be the vet in the African village. It's a lot more about training, capacity building, and facilitating. I think it's helpful for people to get a taster, but it's hard to know how to do that because if you just go somewhere for a few weeks, you don’t get a full understanding of the role. It’s often better than not doing anything. Find ways to connect with people and talk to them about the realities of the work. I don't want to put anybody off, it's been a wonderful ride. It can be exotic, it can be exciting, but it can also be boring and frustrating as well.