Not only did Peter Connolly lose his job this year, but he also lost contact with colleagues stuck in dangerous situations.

Connolly is one of the thousands of federal workers in Maryland who saw their livelihoods upended amid sweeping government job cuts. For those who worked at the United States Agency for International Development like Connolly, the agency shutdown not only put people out of work, but also put the lives of both USAID workers and people living in conflict zones at risk. A Harvard researcher in November estimated that thousands of people who benefited from USAID’s public health services died after the agency was shuttered.

Connolly, a Baltimore resident who worked in the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance within USAID, responded to crises around the world, including in Ukraine, Sudan and Azerbaijan, among others. The Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance was responsible for providing life-saving aid to conflict zones and disaster areas, including food, fuel and employees to help first responders after natural disasters.

He was at the agency for eight years before his job was cut.

Since Connolly was warned months in advance that his last day would be in July, he was able to secure a job with the American Red Cross shortly after his time at USAID ended. Now he works on disaster responses around the United States.

Still, he knows plenty of his colleagues were left in the lurch. We spoke with him about dealing with the aftermath.

What made you want to do this type of work?

I’ve been basically in the disaster management and disaster response world for almost 20 years. It’s what I really enjoy and find the most satisfaction in my professional career doing.

I had a background in domestic emergency management and decided to fall back on that because the international emergency disaster response side is simply not the same since funding was reduced so expansively.

What was it like to not only be laid off but to see your organization fold completely?

It’s been terrible.

There were a lot of people I worked with internationally who were Sudanese or Ukrainian, for example, who I don’t know their status. I know some of the people that I’ve worked with are dead now because conditions in their countries have changed so rapidly due to the shifting political climate and the shifting humanitarian standards in their countries.

Closer to home, I had a really wonderful community of people I worked with on the U.S. side who have been scattered to the wind.

Obviously, things have happened in our own lives. You know, people have lost parents. People have had their own struggles, and knowing that I’m not really there for my colleagues and friends has been really hard. It’s been really pretty shocking to experience that firsthand.

What would be your advice to others in a similar situation?

Jobs are quite varied across the federal government, but I think that no one goes into federal work to make a lot of money or to have a really easy part-time experience. They go into federal service because they believe in something that is more than themselves. They believe in helping others or being part of something bigger.

I don’t think you need to be part of the federal service to do that. I think obviously the federal cuts make it harder to get work with a nonprofit or a state government, but remaining true to that mission was to me very critical in knowing where to go next.

I think a lot of people were anticipating cuts, but did you anticipate it would get to this level?

Even in the first Trump administration, USAID was seen as a necessity. And certainly, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio was nominated and confirmed, he had always been a huge proponent of USAID.

I think we were anticipating programmatic cuts, but staffing cuts of that nature were definitely a surprise.

Starting in March ... once all the contractors got fired and then brought back, once the programs were all cut, and we had staff in various places that were quite dangerous and they weren’t given support, we realized that we weren’t all going to make it through. I was given my RIF [reduction in force] notice in April, and that’s when I began to apply for jobs steadily.

Is there anything else you wish people knew about this?

There are a lot of federal employees who are definitely still struggling. If you’re hiring, they had to learn an incredibly challenging set of administrative and programmatic mechanisms to do the job properly in the federal government, and that type of dedication can be applied to, I think, anything.

I’d also just say that, as much as the people I know who worked for USAID are still suffering ... there are hundreds of thousands of people who USAID was working with and for overseas who are really having a horrific time. Supporting nonprofit organizations, like the Red Cross, but also Doctors Without Borders, Habitat for Humanity, etc., would be a wonderful way to support them.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.