Ambassador Patricia M. Haslach is a former American diplomat. Until September 2017 she served as Acting Assistant Secretary and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs at the Department of State. Ambassador Haslach was Ambassador to Ethiopia 2013 to 2016 and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations from 2012 to 2013. From 2011 to 2012, she was the State Department’s Coordinator for Iraq Transition in the Office of the Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources, responsible for coordinating all Washington-­based aspects of the U.S. transition from military to civilian operations.

Ambassador Haslach has focused her career on trade, development and stabilization, serving in numerous countries undergoing transition. She served as the Deputy Coordinator for Diplomacy for the U.S. Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative (Feed the Future) from 2010 to 2011 and prior to that as Assistant Chief of Mission for Assistance Transition at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, where she oversaw the transfer, transformation, and completion of development and assistance programs. Earlier in her career, Ambassador Haslach was the Director for the Office for Afghanistan, responsible for the multi-billion-dollar reconstruction program. From 2007 to 2009, she was Ambassador to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC), and from 2004 to 2007, she was Ambassador to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Other assignments included, Economic Counselor in Pakistan and Deputy Economic Counselor in Indonesia and in Nigeria. She began her federal government service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and was assigned to India as the regional Agricultural Attache. She followed that assignment with a State Department posting to the U.S. Mission to the European Union managing assistance to the Group of 24 countries.

Ambassador Haslach received numerous awards during career, including a Superior Honor Award for Afghanistan Reconstruction in 2004, The Director General’s Award for Impact and Originality in Reporting in 2002, The Herbert Salzman Award for Excellence in International Economic Performance in 2002, and the Sinclaire language Award for distinguished study of a hard language and its associated culture in 1998.

Ambassador Haslach is a native of Lake Oswego, Oregon, and earned her B.A. from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, and M.A. in International Affairs, and a Certificate from the Institute on Western Europe, Columbia University, New York. She is married to British Ambassador to Iraq Jon Wilks and has two daughters Shereen Herbert who works for Homeland Security and Kiran Herbert who is a journalist and works for Back Roads. She is fluent in French, Italian and Indonesian.