Profile: Tom Frawley ’89, Northern Ireland
January 2006
How else would a public servant from Northern Ireland have met a soybean farmer from Nebraska? This question sums up what Eisenhower Fellowships have meant for Tom Frawley ’89, Northern Ireland, currently serving as the public services Ombudsman for Northern Ireland. “For me, Eisenhower has been about relationships, many of which I never would have formed otherwise,” says Frawley.
Those relationships are at both international and national levels. Internationally, Frawley spent two months on an Eisenhower Fellowship in the U.S. in 1989. “Then and since the Eisenhower program allowed me to meet some remarkable people, with a diverse range of experiences, insights and outlooks. I think of people like Jane Golden, whose talents as a muralist had such an impact in Northern Ireland, Esther Baldwin, who works for Intel and travels from China to Ireland for Eisenhower meetings, Ted Abernathy of the Research Triangle in Raleigh, North Carolina – all working in very different fields in different parts of the world.” Frawley reflects, “Maintaining these friendships and so many others has allowed me to engage with the world, because countries become more accessible and cultures more understandable. As a result, I find myself able to understand and empathize with situations I hear about in the US, Singapore, Berlin, Australia and so many more places around this unsettled globe.”
The experience also encouraged him to pursue other international health care study visits to Australia and New Zealand, and in 1994 he headed a Northern Ireland project team which won a tender to advise on the development of the health service system in Zimbabwe.
But perhaps the most striking result of his Eisenhower experience was the effect it had on relationships within the island of Ireland. Having been appointed in 1981 as the UK’s youngest ever Chief Administrative Officer of a Health Board at the age of 31, Frawley had already begun working across boundaries. He worked with others to establish a cross-border organization of neighboring health boards with the aim of mutual help, understanding, and shared service development.
Having seen the benefits of this, and determined not to allow the Eisenhower experience to end, Frawley joined with other Fellows throughout Ireland to establish a group that continues to meet together at least once every year. Since his appointment in 2000 as Northern Ireland’s Assembly Ombudsman and Commissioner for Complaints, his professional life has moved from health care to dealing with a wider range of public services, but the benefits of those relationships has not diminished.
“People whose worlds, even on a relatively small island, may never have appeared to be connected have become great friends. I now understand their world and see how it connects with mine,” says Frawley, noting that while Fellows meet formally as a group, they also, perhaps more importantly, maintain regular informal contact year-round. “The relationships have long since moved beyond something formal, to real friendships of warmth, humor, and mutual support. When faced with some challenge or other I often find myself wondering what one or other of the Irish Fellows would do, and lift the phone to seek their advice.”
His ability to relate to wider experiences and people of varied backgrounds was certainly of benefit to the public sector in Northern Ireland, recognition of which came through the award of an honorary doctorate from the University of Ulster in 2003. It may well have also been foremost in the minds of Northern Ireland’s First Minister and Deputy First Minister when, in June 2002, they appointed him chair of an international Panel of Experts to support a major Review of Public Administration in Northern Ireland, a task recently completed.
“Northern Ireland is a small place, but I believe it has an enormous contribution to make to the rest of the world. Relationships are being transformed here, and some of what has been achieved in recent years may well be of relevance elsewhere, “says Frawley. “Similarly, we have a lot to learn, and the recent Review of Public Administration offered an opportunity to consider a whole range of structures and practices from other countries and how they might be applied here for the benefit of our own citizens. It is that kind of perspective that Eisenhower Fellowships instill in its participants.”
Frawley’s enthusiasm for Eisenhower certainly hasn’t diminished with time, and he continues to put out the welcome mat for any Fellow, new or old, who comes his way. “If anything, I am more aware of the benefits of the Fellowships today than I was when I first visited the U.S. in 1989. The more the network grows, and the deeper the relationships grow, the greater the impact on each of us, on our work, and on our communities. Long may the spirit of Eisenhower continue to impact across the world.”