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Susan BastressClass of 1970Middle East EnvoySusan Bastress ’70 with her huband Peter Behringer and children Lindsay,Andrew, and Caroline“DCONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008on’t ever assume you know exactly where you’re going toend up,” Susan Bastress ’70 mused. “You have to constantlystay flexible.”A look at what Bastress has accomplished in the past threedecades underscores why that lesson is important to her. Aftermajoring in zoology at Duke University, she worked for the Fish andWildlife Service in the mid-1970s — then switched her career to law.In 2003, as a real estate attorney at the firm Patton Boggs inWashington, DC, she helped negotiate the purchase of a new buildingfor the Qatari Embassy in Washington. Working closely with the Qatariambassador to the U.S. and other Qataris in DC piqued her curiosityabout the culture. When His Highness the Emir, Sheikh Hamad binKhalifa Al Thani, offered Patton Boggs the opportunity to become thefirst U.S. law firm in Qatar, the firm asked Bastress to go as managingpartner, an opportunity she could not imagine passing up — either onher own behalf or that of the firm. She was to become the first non-Qatari citizen licensed to practice law in that Middle East nation.“My husband served in the Peace Corps back in the 1960s, sohe was equally supportive,” she said, though his own career as a realestate developer prevented him from moving with her to Doha, thecapital of Qatar. Her twin teenagers accompanied her and enrolled inschool there; her husband and eldest daughter joined them frequentlyfor vacations.“Living in the Middle East was an incredible experience,”Bastress said. “My family did so much traveling while we were there:we took vacations to Thailand, Istanbul, Beirut, all through Europe.”Qatar, roughly the size of Connecticut, is one of the U.S.’s closest alliesin the Persian Gulf and sits on the third largest natural gas reserve inthe world. “With a very small population sharing the enormous gasprofits, Qatar is the wealthiest per capita country in the world, witha GDP approaching $70,000 per head,” Bastress explained. “And it’s10“I was accepted by all the Qatari menI worked with. I found it very easyto be taken seriously as a professional peer.”only going to get higher. They have a two-hundred-year supply ofnatural gas.”Bastress said that Qatar is striving to be an internationallyrenowned, knowledge-based economy. “They are reinvesting gasprofits into the country’s social infrastructure, focusing on education andhealth, with a goal of making educational and professional opportunitiesmore easily accessible to students in the predominantly Islamic culture.In Qatar especially,” she explained, “the advances made by women,including the right to vote and hold public office, are gaining globalrecognition and support.”Despite what many Westerners assume, Bastress did notstruggle to be accepted as a professional woman in Qatar. “I wasaccepted by all the Qatari men I worked with,” she said. “I found it veryeasy to be taken seriously as a professional peer. I made many friendsand developed many new clients for the firm.”It wasn’t the first time that Bastress had established herselfprofessionally in a different culture. In 1986, with a two-year-old andnewborn twins, she and her husband moved to the U.S. Virgin Islandsto work on a real estate project. What was intended as a three-yearstint turned into a full decade because their careers and children wereflourishing. Bastress established a highly successful law firm withanother attorney. “I look back at those years as some of the mostrewarding of my career,” she said.During her time there, she also established the Virgin IslandsMediation Service (VIMS), a court-supported association of more thanforty certified mediators. Many of the cases she mediated includedhurricane-related claims and personal injury cases, and she remainsproud that the VIMS program is still thriving today.In 2006, Bastress resettled at the DC office of Patton Boggs,where she headed the real estate practice group. The following year,the law firm Orrick, Herrington, and Sutcliffe hired her to increase itsreal estate practice. It’s another firm trying to establish its foothold inthe Middle East —so Bastress suspects a return to the rapidly emergingGulf region might well be on the horizon. As always, she remainsflexible. “Even at the age of fifty-five,” she said, “I find myselfconstantly retooling.”