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Associate Bios
Lawrence P. Dunham
 Lawrence P. Dunham served as U.S. Assistant Chief of Protocol from 1989 until 2005, and held a variety of other positions in the State Department Protocol Office beginning in 1983. He was Acting Chief of Protocol from January until June 2001. He now consults for government and private sector clients.
As Assistant Chief of Protocol, Dunham headed Protocol’s Diplomatic Affairs Division, which oversees the State Department’s relations with over 180 foreign embassies in Washington, and foreign government offices throughout the United States. In addition to his primary responsibilities, Dunham coordinated or participated in a number of events such as the Summit of the Americas, the NATO 50th Anniversary Summit Meetings, Presidential Inaugurations, State Funerals of former U.S. Presidents, State Visits of foreign leaders to the United States, and travel by the President and of Presidential Delegations representing him overseas.
Dunham has been featured as an authority on matters related to protocol and diplomatic immunity on television and radio broadcasts, has been consulted by numerous journalists and authors for insight and guidance in these areas, and has lectured and provided training to diverse groups on a wide range of protocol related matters.
Dunham is a member of the board of directors of Protocol and Diplomacy International – International Protocol Officers Association, the Executive Committee of the Consular Corps of Washington, DC., the advisory boards the annual PassPort DC embassy open house program, and The Hospitality and information Service (THIS), which serves the diplomatic community in Washington, D.C. He also is a member of the U.S. board of directors of Nyumbani in Kenya, an organization which provides assistance to children and families affected by HIV.
He is the recipient of the State Department’s Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards, and the Secretary of State’s Certificate of Appreciation. Other awards include the Order of Her Most Catholic Majesty Queen Isabella, from the King of Spain, and the Commander’s Cross, from the Government of Austria, the Spirit of Diplomacy Award from Protocol and Diplomacy International and a distinguished alumni award from the George Mason University School of Law.
Dunham is a graduate of the Catholic University of America and the George Mason University School of Law.
David Chikvaidze
 David Chikvaidze has worked for over 24 years in the foreign, government and international civil services. Former Presidential Advance and UN Protocol Officer, he is currently Chief of Staff to the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva. He served as Senior Adviser to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Chief of the Communications and NGO Partnerships Section at the Office of the High Commissioner in Geneva, as well as spokesman for the 61st session of the Commission on Human Rights, the Human Rights Committee and other Human Rights Treaty Bodies.
From January 1993 until March 2003, Chikvaidze served at UN Headquarters in New York, working at different times in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, the Office of the UN Coordinator of International Cooperation on Chernobyl, and with the Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General for Western Sahara.
During his service with the UN, Chikvaidze performed a variety of politically sensitive and complicated duties, both at headquarters and on field missions: negotiating humanitarian appeals preparation and aid monitoring arrangements in 1996-97 in Pyongyang with the North Korean government following heavy flooding there; assisting Mr. Sergio Vieira de Mello in negotiating in 1999 with the Yugoslav federal and local authorities humanitarian needs of the population, and humanitarian access to internally displaced persons throughout the FRY, including Kosovo; assisting the Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General for Western Sahara, James A. Baker III, during his confidential diplomatic missions to Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania in the context of the negotiations over Western Sahara; disaster assessment and coordination in Tajikistan and in Afghanistan in connection with two major earthquakes in northern Afghanistan in 1998; preparation in 1998 of a confidential Contingency Plan of the UN system for Emergency Humanitarian Assistance to the Population of Iraq in the Event of Military Action in Connection with the Weapons Inspection Issue; four separate visits to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and to contaminated areas of Belarus and Ukraine in efforts to strengthen international assistance for victims of this disaster; organizing the participation of the Secretary-General and heads of state and government in UN 50 commemorative events in New York and San Francisco; and other duties.
Prior to joining the United Nations, Chikvaidze served as deputy Chef de Cabinet and head of scheduling for President Gorbachev and as presidential protocol and advance officer for Presidents Gorbachev and Yeltsin. He is a foreign service officer by training and spent five years in Washington, D.C. (1985-1990), where, as special assistant to the Soviet Ambassador and Chief of Protocol of the Embassy, he was the contact person with the White House, the U.S. Department of State, other Executive Departments, for US-Soviet Ministerial meetings (Schultz-Shevardnadze; Baker-Shevardnadze) in Washington, D.C., New York, Jackson Hole, WY; and US-Soviet Summit meetings in Washington, D.C. (1987 – Reagan-Gorbachev and 1990 – Bush-Gorbachev), and in New York (1988 – so-called Three Presidents Summit), and during visits of other high-level delegations.
Chikvaidze holds a Ph.D (1984) in political science and is the author of occasional articles on international relations. He is a fellow of the Swiss Forum for International Affairs, an Adviser of the Georgian Association in the United States of America and a founding member of the Georgian Association of Switzerland.
Born in Tbilisi in 1958, Chikvaidze is a citizen of Georgia. He is married to a medical doctor and has one son.
Lawrence R. Velte
 Lawrence R. Velte is member of the faculty at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies (NESA) in Washington, D.C. The NESA Center, an agency of the Department of Defense, conducts frequent seminars and academic programs for military officers and civilian officials representing countries from Mauritania to Bangladesh. He joined NESA in October, 2005, following a 37-year career as an Army officer and U.S. Department of Defense civilian.
Between 1992 and 2005, Velte served as Deputy Chief of the Middle East Division in the Joint Staff’s Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate (J-5). In that role, he provided information, analysis, and policy recommendations concerning the Middle East and North Africa to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the senior U.S. military leadership, so that the Chairman could carry out his responsibilities as the military advisor to the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the National Security Council. He planned and conducted military cooperation programs with such countries as Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. He also helped plan and execute reciprocal visits between senior U.S. military leaders and their counterparts from the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia.
During his active duty military career, Velte was a Middle East Foreign Area Officer and served tours of duty in Tunis, Tunisia (at the U.S. Department of State’s advanced Arabic course), Jerusalem (as a United Nations peacekeeper), and in Amman, Jordan (as the Army Attaché.) Other overseas military tours included Thailand and Vietnam.
Velte is a graduate of Dickinson College and the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.
Anneliesa Clump Alprin
 Anneliesa Clump Alprin is well regarded for her fresh approaches to event management, public relations, community outreach, and communications campaigns.
Specializing in national education initiatives and large-scale social marketing campaigns, clients hire her to design, to execute and to evaluate marketing and public affairs campaigns. Clients have included the Library of Congress, Georgetown University, National Geographic Channel/Channels International, Million Mom March (2000), National AmeriCorps Association, and KaBOOM!
For a brief stint, Alprin served as the Chief Outreach Officer for the American Association of University Women (AAUW) promoting education and equity for all women and girls. Prior to joining AAUW, Alprin directed the communications and public affairs efforts for the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress, a nationwide oral history program to collect interviews of wartime veterans. During Alprin's tenure, the project grew into the largest oral history project with nearly 50,000 individual stories.
For more than twelve years, Alprin has developed and directed public awareness and communications campaigns for programs including the Million Mom March, the Clinton’s White House Millennium Celebration, and the National World War II Memorial Groundbreaking Ceremony. She managed $2.5 million in grants for the Points of Light Foundation. Alprin began her career in Washington, D.C. at the Podesta Group, a government consulting and public relations firm.
She serves on the Board of Directors for Miriam’s Kitchen, the premiere breakfast and support program for the District’s homeless citizens, and is a volunteer docent at the Library of Congress where she gives monthly tours of the Thomas Jefferson Building. Recently, Alprin and her new groom were featured on the front page of The Washington Post for riding Metro to their reception on their wedding day in full regalia with wedding party in tow.
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