40 years of DAI

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to development policy, but no change in the funding situation. The new USAID Administrator, Brian Atwood, soon found himself mired in a prolonged battle to salvage the agency when adversaries on Capitol Hill, notably Senator Jesse Helms, were emboldened by the Republican victories in the 1994 elections. Calling foreign assistance “money going down a rathole,” they tried to fold USAID into the State Department. The budget crunch got so severe that Atwood’s management team had to implement several “reductions in force” that further eroded USAID’s in-house technical capacity. With its main client struggling against the tide, DAI’s management took a cautious view of the market. Its 1994 strategic plan predicted that the company would soon have to make do within “a context of stable or even declining revenues,” a discouraging message after revenues had more than doubled (from $20 million to $45 million) in the first four years of the decade. In-depth evaluation of projects in the field had long been one of DAI’s strengths, but now, as the company examined its own systems and culture, the results were unsettling. In the past, management had been able to keep morale high, weather minor variations in the business cycle, and adapt the company’s structure to fit the personal idiosyncrasies of staff. But these informal processes no longer sufficed in a time of heightened uncertainty, for a much larger enterprise. After a subpar financial year in 1994, DAI entered 1995 with a fairly austere budget. Mickelwait, Barclay, and the Board were all concerned about the imbalance between bill- Photo by Joanne Kent, DAI Longtime DAIer Bruce Spake headed up the Bosnia Reconstruction Finance Facility, which was profiled for readers of DAI’s newsletter Developments in 1996. 53
In the early 1990s, DAI had staff working in Poland as USAID advisors and on banking projects. That presence grew as the 1990s progressed. 54 able hours (direct labor) and overhead costs. The picture did not get any brighter in the first few months of 1995. In April, management decided it would have to bite the bullet, and for the first time in the company’s history carried out a layoff, affecting 17 individuals, or 14 percent of the home office staff. Several were DAI veterans who seemed to have lost their passion, or whose skills were no longer in demand. This was a painful process, and Mickelwait in particular took it as “something of a personal failure.” But his candor and directness persuaded the remaining staff that it was a necessary decision, and that DAI would quickly recover. He was right. Rather than assuming a defensive posture, Mickelwait took some bold steps to move DAI away from its historical dependence on USAID and gain new business from other clients, including foreign governments and multilateral development banks, such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Regional DAI offices had not been necessary when USAID was the sole customer, and although the Jakarta office experiment of 1980–1982 had failed, there was reason to think that a country presence was critical in gaining access to foreign government clients and projects funded by multilateral development banks. Establishing such local footprints, therefore, became key
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2 DAI, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA www.
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FOreWOrd There are three reasons we
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chapter One Something to believe In
Page 10 and 11:
Chapter One Something to Believe In
Page 12 and 13: Development By 1979, the notion tha
Page 14 and 15: It was Charles Franklin “Charlie
Page 16 and 17: law in Delaware, where many small c
Page 18 and 19: ects in Africa. Hatch held a newly
Page 20 and 21: Most staff members who joined DAI i
Page 22 and 23: tise, energy, and especially money.
Page 24 and 25: Barclay encountered Charlie Sweet,
Page 26 and 27: after Barclay. In early 1978, he be
Page 28 and 29: norm after this. The offering docum
Page 30 and 31: gathered in the well-appointed surr
Page 32 and 33: Chapter Two Learning by Doing, 1981
Page 34 and 35: spending, and demand in the technic
Page 36 and 37: several senior managers, including
Page 38 and 39: Back on the Growth Path Don Mickelw
Page 40 and 41: second was that the firm was ready
Page 42 and 43: spurs and become assets in the firm
Page 44 and 45: A Different Direction By 1981, soon
Page 46 and 47: in rural enterprise development and
Page 48 and 49: cided to begin providing annual cas
Page 50 and 51: DAI began to grow again, he grew re
Page 52 and 53: front, it seemed likely that ICF wo
Page 54 and 55: Chapter Three The Fresh Faces of De
Page 56 and 57: household word. USAID had commissio
Page 58 and 59: epublics. For the work in Poland, D
Page 60 and 61: tion. Calculating the growing impor
Page 64 and 65: to realizing Mickelwait’s vision
Page 66 and 67: in the forefront, serving an unprec
Page 68 and 69: find alternatives as long as the Go
Page 70 and 71: Transition These successes and fail
Page 72 and 73: Mickelwait knew that Barclay had in
Page 74 and 75: Chapter Four Farther and Faster, 20
Page 76 and 77: Barclay could not have known then t
Page 78 and 79: Tactical deployment of grants was t
Page 80 and 81: DAI on track to cross the $100 mill
Page 82 and 83: ECIAfrica as a reliable service pro
Page 84 and 85: highly successful. Said Abu Hijleh,
Page 86 and 87: able expertise in federal procureme
Page 88 and 89: When new projects first appeared in
Page 90 and 91: Transformation and Transition The e
Page 92 and 93: to improve as soon as this change o
Page 94 and 95: Chapter Five Pulling Together, 2005
Page 96 and 97: in the ESOP were distributed throug
Page 98 and 99: Ownership, however, could be figura
Page 100 and 101: advantage, USAID would favor a comp
Page 102 and 103: As Jim Boomgard noted, “Developme
Page 104 and 105: governments on all levels to better
Page 106 and 107: In his role as COO, empowered by Ba
Page 108 and 109: the mid- and late 2000s, the compan
Page 110 and 111: the mid-1990s, DAI had begun to ext
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immense—and DAI’s projects are
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ard Winkler. Few will dispute that
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DAI Advancing Human Prosperity
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40 years of DAI

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