The perils of 1992 didn't keep the current PBN senior veep from falling in love with Ukraine
Leading up to the Post’s 10th birthday this September, each week we’ll be highlighting members of the local business community who have played leading roles over the years. This week, we talk to Myron Wasylyk, senior vice president of the PBN Company in Kyiv.
“[Politically] I am Republican; economically – conservative; socially – international, I guess,” says Cleveland-born Myron Wasylyk, 42, senior vice president of the PBN Company, who started his career working for George H.W. Bush’s presidential election campaign in 1988. After Bush’s victory, Wasylyk joined the United States State Department as political assistant to an assistant secretary of state. He wrote speeches and did public relations.
“It was fun. I got to see a lot of the world,” he says.
Before that, though, he studied business administration at Ohio’s Kent State University, most famous for its 1970 anti-Vietnam War protest, at which four students were killed when the National Guard opened fire on the unarmed crowd.
“So I went from totally anti-establishment university into the Republican establishment in Washington,” Wasylyk says with a grin.
No one else to send
In January of 1992 the State Department was establishing the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv and needed Ukrainian-speakers, fast.
“I was one of the few people who worked in the State Department who knew Ukrainian,” says Wasylyk, who was sent to Kyiv for a three month assignment.
Both sides of his family left Ukraine during World War II. After the war, the families immigrated to the States via Europe. His parents met through the Ukrainian immigrant community and got married, bringing up their three kids to remain conscious of their cultural roots.
“[We] grew up speaking Ukrainian, eating borshcht and vareniki, going to Ukrainian school [and] hating every Saturday,” he says.
“It’s funny, because when we were growing up, nobody thought they were American because we grew up in Ukrainian homes. So people didn’t think we’re American, and here people don’t think we’re Ukrainian. It’s a weird type of existence.”
But that experience helped broaden Wasylyk’s conception of identity.
“I feel perfectly fine in America and I sort of realized myself in Ukraine,” he says. “So now I am like an international sort of person.”
Muddy, snowy, cold
On first arriving in his ancestral homeland, Wasylyk wasn’t as confident. Ukraine in the winter of 1992 was unpleasant.
“It was muddy, snowy, cold and sand was all over the street. There were very few cars on the street due to the energy crisis. I was brought to the hotel Rus and stayed there for three months. It was the worst three months of my life.”
The U.S. Embassy, he remembers, was located in the former headquarters of the Communist party for Shevchen-
kivsky district, and all the symbolism was still in place.
“On the third floor I remember there was still a huge bust of Lenin in the actovy zal [assembly hall.] It was pretty cool.”
His work consisted of organizing meetings with government officials, meeting delegations and releasing visas. At that time, he says, the majority of those who wanted to leave were Jews or other religious refugees who wanted to emigrate to the States.
The public servant
After three months in Ukraine, Wasylyk returned to the West, working in human rights commissions in the U.S. delegations to the United Nations offices in Geneva and New York.
“When Clinton came into office on Jan. 23, 1993, all Bush’s people were out of jobs. So I was unemployed for six weeks. It was the six best weeks in my life,” he jokes.
The idleness ended soon. Wasylyk was invited back to Ukraine to work as executive secretary in a George Soros-sponsored project that advised the Rada. Economic and legal reform, national security and foreign policy were major advisory areas; Wasylyk was to coordinate all the project’s operations.
He came back to Kyiv in March of 1993.
“It was a great job. I got to met lots of interesting people. The first time I met [Leonid] Kuchma was when he just resigned from the prime minister position… He was sitting in the Verkhovna Rada in the gallery. I went up to him and introduced myself and we were chatting. But he is not the type of guy you can chat with…very nice guy, but not open.”
In 1995 Wasylyk started working for mass privatization programs sponsored by USAID and dealt with various Ukrainian state institutions, including the State Property Fund. Shortly after that the PBN Company – specializing in public relations, communications, and lobbying – took over the programs’ communications duties. Wasylyk went to work for them in 1998, opening the company’s commercial office and developing business in Ukraine. Currently Wasylyk manages the company’s operations in Ukraine and supervises operations in Moldova and Belarus. PBN has other offices in Moscow, London, Alma Aty and Washington, its headquarters. Though the Moscow operations are the largest in the CIS region, Ukraine, he explains, is the most promising market.
“The market is growing very rapidly. Ukrainian and multinational companies are becoming mature and hire us for the services we provide,” Wasylyk says. He adds that Ukraine is now the most exciting market in the CIS and in the next three years will become the most exiting place in Europe.
Settled in
“I’ll be here,” Wasylyk replies, when asked about his personal plans.
“I have a Ukrainian wife, am starting a Ukrainian family, I live in Ukraine,” says the newlywed.
“I did a lot of traveling but it’s always great to come back to Kyiv,” he continues, calling it his “home base.”
“For anyone who’s from the Ukrainian Diaspora, this is the time to be in Ukraine,” he exclaims.
His parents live in Ohio, but often visit their son and Ukrainian relatives. The trips out to the village, he jokes, are always accompanied by unbelievable loads of food – and of samohon (homemade vodka), which helps fend off food poisoning.
Even though he travels a lot, Wasylyk hasn’t tired of seeing things.
“I really love Rome and Barcelona… Crimea, though, is just as beautiful as Mediterranean.”
Biking and staying in shape is his other thing in life. “It’s hard with the Ukrainian diet,” he laughs.
Wasylyk now owns a spot of land outside the city and plans to ride his bike out there, along with this wife.
“I’ve spent 12 or 13 years in Kyiv, so I’ve seen a lot in the city and it doesn’t interest me anymore. I’m more interested in the countryside now.”
