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Robert Mason Beecroft
Robert Beecroft retired from the U.S. Senior Foreign Service in June 2006 with the rank of Career Minister-Counselor. From 2001 to 2004, following his Ambassadorial confirmation by the Senate, he led the Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), with a staff of 800 people from thirty countries. From 2004 to 2006, he served as a Professor of National Security Strategy at the National War College in Washington, D.C. He then held the title of Vice President for Diplomacy and Development at MPRI, a division of the L-3 Corporation, in Alexandria, Virginia
Amb. Beecroft was promoted to the Senior Foreign Service following an earlier assignment (1996-97) to Bosnia and Herzegovina as Special Envoy for the Bosnian Federation and Acting Chief of Mission at U.S. Embassy Sarajevo. In 1997-98, he was a member of the Fortieth Senior Seminar in Washington. He then served at the Department of State as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (1998-2000) and Senior Coordinator for Bosnian Implementation in the Bureau of European Affairs (2000-2001).
As a junior and mid-grade Foreign Service Officer, Amb. Beecroft served on four continents. He was the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassies in Amman, Jordan and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; Political-Economic Counselor at the U.S. Mission to NATO in Brussels; Political Officer at Embassies Paris, Bonn and Cairo; Advisor-Expert on the U.S. SALT TWO strategic nuclear arms delegation in Geneva; Special Assistant to the U.S. Ambassador to France; and Deputy Political Advisor to the NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Mons, Belgium. In Washington, he served as Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of State, Officer-in-Charge of Federal German Affairs, and a nuclear arms control specialist in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.
Amb. Beecroft is the recipient of two Department of State personal Superior Honor Awards, four group Superior Honor Awards, and numerous Performance Awards and Meritorious Step Increases.
Born in Newark, New Jersey, Amb. Beecroft completed secondary education at the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a B.A. and an M.A. in French. He studied in Paris at the Sorbonne, in Munich at the Goethe-Institut, and on the postgraduate level at the University of Strasbourg. Before joining the Foreign Service, he taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Saint Joseph's University and Germantown Academy in Philadelphia, and at the Lycée d’État Fustel de Coulanges in Strasbourg. He is a 1988 graduate of the National War College. He served in the U.S. Army Reserve (Civil Affairs, Medical Corps).
Amb. Beecroft is fluent in French, German, Norwegian and Danish and conversant in several other languages. His hobbies include music (listening and performing), archaeology, snorkeling, tennis, hiking and U.S. Civil War history. He is a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy, the International Institute of Strategic Studies, the Atlantic Council, the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs, the American Council on Germany, the American Foreign Service Association, the Association of the United States Army, the Army Civil Affairs Association, the Army and Navy Club of Washington, the Union League of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Cricket Club. He is second vice president of the Alliance Française of Washington.
Amb. Beecroft is married to the former Mette Louise Ording Ottesen. They have two grown children, Christopher and Pamela. |
