William Lacy Swing, a 1956 Catawba College alumnus, was awarded the "Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany" on November 3, 2014 by German President Joachim Gauck. The honor marked the 60th anniversary of relations between Germany and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), based in Geneva, Switzerland, which Swing heads as Director General.
Prior to being elected as IOM Director General in 2008 and then re-elected in 2013 for a second five-year term, Swing was a six-time U.S. Ambassador during a 40-year diplomatic career. Swing then spent a decade as the Special Representative of the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, first as head of the UN Peacekeeping Mission in the Western Sahara and from 2003-2008 as Chief of the UN Peacekeeping Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
