June 19, 2009

 

Seattle Hungarian American Chamber of Commerce President David Hughes Receives Hungarian State Award

 

David Hughes and Ambassador Ferenc Somogyi with the award

 

(Courtesy of Photographer Peter Alunans)

David Hughes, President of the Hungarian American Chamber of Commerce in Seattle, WA was awarded with the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary for his activities in the field of development of U.S.-Hungarian economic and commercial relations, and for his promotion of the Hungarian political and economic democratization process.

David Hughes, Ambassador Ferenc Somogyi, Andrea Bors Somogyi, wife of the Ambassador, Press Attaché Zoltán Fehér

Ambassador Ferenc Somogyi presented the state award at the Embassy of Hungary on Friday, June 19 personally to the 71-year-old Mr. Hughes who was accompanied by his wife, his three daughters, and a family friend.

Economic Counselor Edit Pápai, Sharon Hughes, Catherine Hughes, Morgan Hughes, David Hughes, Maria Hughes, Ambassador Ferenc Somogyi, a Hughes family friend, Economic Counselor Gábor Szabó

David Hughes graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle, WA in the Far Eastern and Russian Institute, and went on to graduate school there, and also at Columbia University in New York City.  He entered the American Foreign Service the day after John Kennedy was inaugurated on January 20, 1961.

In the Foreign Service, his posting included Georgetown, [then British] Guyana, Hong Kong (twice), covering domestic political affairs of the People's Republic of China. Thereafter he lived in Taiwan and in Venezuela as a businessman. In 1980 as United States relations began to expand with China, he helped open the first US Consulate in China [since 1949] in Guangzhou.

In 1989, during the first year of his diplomatic service in Budapest, Hungary, he initiated the idea of establishing an American Chamber of Commerce in Budapest, and the first organizational meetings took place in his home on Roskovics utca in Budapest.  When he departed Budapest in 1991, about 65% of total foreign direct investment in Hungary was traceable to American firms though sometimes acting through European subsidiaries.

Upon retiring from the Foreign Service, Hungarian Ambassador Péter Zwack asked him to set up a Hungarian Chamber of Commerce in Seattle, modeled on the American Chamber model, which he did, and has remained the President of the Hungarian American Chamber of Commerce of the Pacific Northwest ever since.