Paul D. Wohlers, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, was confirmed as U.S. ambassador to the Balkan nation of Macedonia on August 2, 2011. Wohlers has previous experience in Macedonia. 

 

Born circa 1952, Wohlers graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1974 with a B.S. in International Affairs and served as a Naval Flight Officer, flying in the E-2C Hawkeye with VAW-121, attached to the USS Eisenhower. He earned a J.D. from the University of Washington School of Law in 1982. 

 

Wohlers’s first foreign posting was to the U.S. embassy in Bucharest, Romania, where he served from 1985 to 1987. Returning stateside, Wohlers worked on arms control issues in the State Department Bureau of Political-Military Affairs from 1987 to 1990, and returned to Eastern Europe to work in the embassy at Moscow, Russia, from 1991 to 1993. 

 

Switching gears from Europe to Asia, Wohlers served as Desk Officer for Bangladesh in the Bureau of South Asian Affairs from 1993 to 1994, and served on the Executive Secretariat Staff from 1994 to 1996. He was rewarded with an assignment to the embassy in Nicosia, Cyprus, from 1997 to 2000, returning to Washington, DC, to serve as a Senior Watch Officer in the State Department Operations Center from 2000 to 2001, and for a stint as Deputy Director of the Executive Secretariat Staff from 2001 to 2003. 

 

From July 2004 to July 2007 Wohlers served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Skopje, Macedonia, and for part of that time (March to September 2005) served as Chargé d’Affaires. He was then promoted to Director of the Office of Caucasus Affairs and Regional Conflicts in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, where he served from August 2007 to August 2011, when he was confirmed as ambassador to Macedonia.  

 

Wohlers and his wife, Mary Jo, have three daughters: Rachel, Julia and Jessica.

 

Wohlers’ brother, Larry, is the U.S. ambassador to the Central African Republic. 

-Matt Bewig

 

Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (pdf)

New US Ambassador Pledges To Help Macedonia (by Sinisa Jakov Marusic, Balkan Insight)

Wohlers: Name Solution Must be Found (IDIVIDI)