TOUR LECTURERS
Colonel John E. Chere, Jr.
John E. Chere Jr. (Colonel US Army, retired) “John” is an alumnus of Cal (BA,82) in Political Science, and Columbia University (MA,92) in International Affairs/Middle East History. John served over 30 years of active duty in the military and is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Defense Security Cooperation University (Ohio) and Adjunct Instructor at the Joint Special Operations University (Florida) instructing in Security Cooperation and Middle East Regional studies. John served over 20 years as an Infantry Officer in the US, Europe and the Middle East, and spent his last ten years of service as a Foreign Area Specialist in the Middle East and North Africa. More specifically, he was posted to our Embassies as the Defense Attaché to Morocco (2002-2005), Defense Attaché to Algiers (2006-2007), Army Attaché in Tel
Aviv (2007-2010), Senior Defense Official in Tunis (2010-2013) and returned to Israel (2013-2014) for his last year before retirement. John’s Middle East adventures pre-date his Army days having grown up overseas in Iran, Turkey and Morocco and born in Vietnam as the son of a US Diplomat before coming home and going to Cal. John is currently living in Santa Rosa, California with his family and has previously led Cal Discovery Tours to Southern Spain (2015) Provincial France (2018) Egypt Nile Cruise (2019), Greece, Egypt, Jordan Cruise (2021) , Morocco (2022) and Turkey (2023) He also maintains an active interest in wines and is an educator/ tour guide at Benziger Family Winery in Glen Ellen, California.
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