Robert William Farrand (April 7, 1934 - April 26, 2022) retired in 1998 after 34 years in the U.S. Foreign Service. He served as Ambassador to Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu from 1990 until 1993. Farrand was concurrently Supervisor of the Bosnian city of Brčko and Deputy High Representative for the northern sector of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1997 to 2000).

Overseas assignments included Malaysia, the Soviet Union, then-Czechoslovakia, Papua New Guinea, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the State Department he had stints in the Economic Bureau, the Soviet desk, the Office of Eastern Europe and Yugoslav Affairs. From 1987 to 1990, Farrand served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs.

Since 2001, Farrand has been affiliate professor and distinguished fellow at George Mason University in northern Virginia. He is the author of “Peace Building and Reconstruction in the Balkans: The Brcko Experience” (2011, Rowman & Littlefield).

Farrand attended Mount Saint Mary’s College in Maryland (B.S.) and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. (M.A.). He is a 1981 graduate of the National War College.

Farrand served in the U.S. Navy from 1957-1964 — three years at sea followed by three years’ as instructor in economics and at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. Born in Watertown, New York, Farrand is married with five children and five grandchildren. He lives in McLean, Virginia.