Michael Kocher, Vice President of International Programs

Michael Kocher is the IRC’s vice president of international programs. Since joining the IRC in 1993, Mr. Kocher has held a variety of roles within the agency, and has had extensive experience supervising international field operations. He was a member of the first IRC emergency team to enter southern Iraq from Kuwait during the 2003 war, and in 2004, he served as Iraq country director, overseeing offices in Baghdad, Basra, Najaf, Karbala, Erbil, and Kirkuk.

His international management experience is far-reaching, with recent postings as regional director for the IRC’s $25 million tsunami response in Aceh, Indonesia and senior advisor in Afghanistan. Mr. Kocher first joined the IRC during the Bosnian war as director of the Refugee Resettlement Program in Croatia, and he later supervised resettlement operations in Austria as well as in Macedonia, where he helped organize the first US-bound flights for refugees from Kosovo. Mr. Kocher received his B.A. degree from Kalamazoo College and a J.D. from the University of Notre Dame Law School.