Biographies
Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry
Term of Appointment: 04/29/2009 to present
Karl W. Eikenberry was confirmed as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan by the Senate on April 3, 2009 and sworn in on April 29, 2009. Prior to this assignment, Mr. Eikenberry served as the Deputy Chairman of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Military Committee in Brussels, Belgium. He retired from the U.S. military with the rank of Lieutenant General on April 28, 2009.
His military operational posts included service as commander and staff officer with mechanized, light, airborne, and ranger infantry units in the continental United States, Hawaii, Korea, and Italy.
He has served in various strategy, policy, and political-military positions, including Director for Strategic Planning and Policy for U.S. Pacific Command; U.S. Security Coordinator and Chief of the Office of Military Cooperation in Kabul, Afghanistan; Assistant Army and later Defense Attaché at the United States Embassy in Beijing, China; Senior Country Director for China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense; and Deputy Director for Strategy, Plans, and Policy on the Army Staff.
He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, has master’s degrees from Harvard University in East Asian Studies and Stanford University in Political Science, and was a National Security Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He earned an Interpreter’s Certificate in Mandarin Chinese from the British Foreign Commonwealth Office while studying at the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense Chinese Language School in Hong Kong and he has an Advanced Degree in Chinese History from Nanjing University in the People’s Republic of China.
His military awards and decorations include the Defense Distinguished and Superior Service Medals, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Ranger Tab, Combat and Expert Infantryman badges, and master parachutist wings. He has received the Department of State Meritorious and Superior Honor Awards, Director of Central Intelligence Award, Canadian Meritorious Service Cross, Czech Republic Meritorious Cross, Hungarian Alliance Medal, French Legion of Honor, and Afghanistan’s Ghazi Amir Amanullah Khan and Akbar Khan Medals.
He has published numerous articles on U.S. military training, tactics, and strategy, on Chinese ancient military history, and on Asia-Pacific security issues. He was previously the president of the Foreign Area Officers Association and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He has a commercial pilot’s license and instrument rating, and also enjoys sailing and scuba diving. He is married to Ching Eikenberry.
Visit the website of the Embassy of the United States in Kabul, Afghanistan
Deputy Ambassador Francis J. Ricciardone, Jr.
Term of Appointment: 03/2009 to present
Francis J. Ricciardone, Jr. was assigned as Deputy Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in March, 2009. Ambassador Ricciardone previously served as Ambassador to the Arab Republic of Egypt (2005-2008) and concurrently as Ambassador to the Republic of the Philippines and the Republic of Palau from 2002 to 2005. Prior to that, Ambassador Ricciardone served as Director of the Department's Task Force on the Coalition Against Terrorism and as a Senior Advisor to the Director General of the Foreign Service. From March 1999 until early 2001, he served as the Secretary of State's Special Coordinator for the Transition of Iraq.
Ambassador Ricciardone was born in Boston and graduated from Malden Catholic High School. Upon graduation summa cum laude from Dartmouth College in 1973, he received a Fulbright Scholarship for teaching and study in Italy. He went to Iran as a teacher in 1976, traveling widely in Southwest Asia, Europe, and the Middle East until he entered the Foreign Service in 1978.
Ambassador Ricciardone's Foreign Service assignments include two tours in Turkey, most recently (1995-1999) as Deputy Chief of Mission and Charge d'Affaires; and service in Cairo, Amman, and London. He served in two multinational military deployments: as chief of the Civilian Observer Unit of the Multinational Force and Observers in Egypt's Sinai Desert, and as Political Advisor to the U.S. and Turkish commanding generals of Operation Provide Comfort, based in Turkey and operating in Iraq. In Washington, DC, Ambassador Ricciardone has served in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, and in senior management positions under the Director General of the Foreign Service and of Human Resources. He has won high awards for policy and program management and for political reporting.
Mr. Ricciardone speaks Italian, Turkish, Arabic, and French.
Assistant Ambassador Earl Anthony "Tony" Wayne
Coordinating Director for Development and Economic Affairs
Term of Appointment: 06/2009 to present
Earl Anthony "Tony" Wayne was appointed Coordinating Director for Development and Economic Affairs in Kabul, Afghanistan in June 2009 to oversee all U.S. government non-military assistance to the Afghan nation.
A career diplomat since 1975, Ambassador Wayne served as U.S. Ambassador to Argentina from November 2006 to April 2009 where he strengthened bilateral cooperation between the United States and Argentina in such key areas as fighting international crime, narcotics trafficking, and terrorism, in supporting non-proliferation, peace-keeping, protection of human rights, expanding education and youth exchanges, and in areas of scientific and health research. With more than 500 US firms based in Argentina, the Ambassador promoted U.S. commercial interests and supported substantial increases in bilateral trade and tourism. He also greatly expanded cooperation with Argentine civil society and non-governmental organizations.
From June 2000 until June 2006 Ambassador Wayne served as Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs (EB). There he oversaw work on post-conflict economic assistance, economic sanctions, international debt, development and economic reform policies, combating the financing of terrorism, international energy policy, trade, intellectual property and investment policies, international telecommunications policy, international transportation policies, support for U.S. businesses overseas, and efforts to end trade in "conflict diamonds".
As Assistant Secretary, Ambassador Wayne led EB’s work on:
- organizing major international donor and reconstruction conferences, including for Afghanistan;
- placing terrorists and their financiers under UN sanctions and building international coalitions to staunch the flow of money to terrorists;
- negotiating debt relief and economic reform packages for partner countries;
- supporting U.S. companies in international commerce and investment disputes as well as trade negotiations;
- negotiating "open skies" and other international agreements benefiting the U.S. transportation, high-tech and communications industries;
- helping to formulate U.S. development policy, including the creation of the Millennium Challenge Corporation;
- coordination of reconstruction assistance and pledges to countries hit by the 2004 Asian tsunami and to Pakistan after the 2005 earthquake.
He served as Interim Under Secretary for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs for six months in 2005. During this time, he also served as U.S. Foreign Affairs "sous sherpa" helping to prepare the Gleneagles G8 Summit, in addition to his duties as Assistant Secretary.
For most of the 1990s, Ambassador Wayne worked on European affairs. He was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of European Affairs, 1997-2000, and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe and Canada, 1996-97. His portfolio included relations with the European Union, the OECD, the G-8, regional economic and global issues, Nazi restitution, bureau management, and U.S.-Canadian relations during 1996-97. Ambassador Wayne was Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Mission to the European Union, 1993-96. From 1991 to 1993, he was Director for Western European Affairs at the National Security Council.
Ambassador Wayne was Director for Regional Affairs for the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Counter-Terrorism during 1989-91. He took a leave of absence and worked as the national security correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, 1987-89. He served as First Secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, 1984-87.
Ambassador Wayne was Special Assistant to Secretaries of State Haig and Shultz from 1981 to 1983. During the tenure of Secretary Muskie, he served in the State Department's Executive Secretariat. Earlier, he was posted as a political officer in Rabat, Morocco, and as a China analyst in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.
Ambassador Wayne was promoted to "Career Minister" in 2002. In 2008, he received the Paul Wellstone Anti-Slavery Ambassador of the Year Award for his work against trafficking in persons in Argentina. He has also received the Department of State’s Distinguished Honor Award and Presidential Distinguished and Meritorious Service Awards.
Ambassador Wayne has a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University (1984), Masters degrees in Political Science from Princeton University (1975) and Stanford University (1973), and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley (1972). Ambassador Wayne is married and has a daughter and a son.
USAID Mission Director William M. Frej
Term of Appointment: 05/2009 to present
William M. Frej was sworn-in as the eighth U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Mission Director to Afghanistan on May 8, 2009. A Minister Counselor in the Senior Foreign Service, Frej has served for more than 20 years at USAID in both overseas and Washington, D.C. assignments.
As head of the USAID/Afghanistan team, Frej is responsible for the U.S. Government’s assistance program to Afghanistan. With over 7.9 billion dollars provided for development programs since 2002, USAID has the largest bilateral civilian assistance program in Afghanistan. USAID’s work continues to be a vital support to Afghanistan in its efforts to ensure economic growth led by the private sector, establish a democratic and capable state governed by the rule of law, and provide basic services for its people.
Most recently, Frej served as the Mission Director for the USAID Regional Mission for Central Asian Republics. During his tour, Frej strengthened partnerships between the U.S. and Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. As Mission Director, he worked to increase regional trade, promote democracy, and address health and other social issues.
Prior to that, he served as USAID Mission Director for Indonesia, where he led the U.S. Government relief and reconstruction efforts following the 2004 historic tsunami and earthquake and was awarded the Presidential Meritorious Honor Award.
Frej’s other USAID assignments have included Mission Director in Poland, Regional Urban Development Officer and Director of the Office of Market Transition for Central and Eastern Europe, and several positions within the USAID Mission in Jakarta. He also served on President Bush’s foreign policy team as the first Director for Development Issues at the National Security Council in the White House.
Before joining USAID, Frej served as an administrator for the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and as a policy planner with Berkeley’s National Housing and Economic Development Law Project in California.
Frej holds a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from the University of Arizona and a Master’s degree in City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley.
Frej was raised in Maquoketa, Iowa and he and his wife, Anne, maintain a residence in Santa Fe, New Mexico.