Helen Reed-Rowe, a member of the Senior Foreign Service, is the first U.S. ambassador dedicated to the Republic of Palau. Previously, the American ambassador to the Philippines used to also handle diplomatic relations with the tiny Pacific island nation. That practice ended with President Barack Obama’s decision to send Reed-Rowe to Palau. She was sworn in on September 27, 2010.

 

Reed-Rowe earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland, and her master’s degree in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.

 

Once she joined the Foreign Service, Reed-Rowe served as a desk officer in the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs and as a member of the board of examiners in the Bureau of Human Resources.

 

Her other Washington assignments have included management positions in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Bureau of European Affairs and Overseas Building Operations.

 

She also served a one-year assignment on Capitol Hill as a Pearson Fellow.

 

Reed-Rowe has worked overseas in supervisory management positions in Jamaica, Ecuador and Niger, and she was deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Majuro, Marshall Islands from 2005 to 2007.

 

Prior to her nomination, she served as a foreign affairs advisor from the State Department to the Avian Influenza Action Group, and as a senior advisor to the Office of Performance Evaluation.

 

Reed-Rowe speaks Spanish and French. She has a son, Alvin Reed, and a daughter, Nikkia Reed.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Official Biography (State Department)