Ambassador Kenneth MacLean Hillas, Jr.
Since August 2005, Ken has served as the Deputy Chief of Mission in Warsaw. As DCM he oversees Embassy operations and serves as the principal advisor to the Ambassador. Prior to his arrival in Warsaw Ken was the DCM in Prague (2002-2005) when the NATO Prague Summit (Nov. 2002) and Czech accession to the EU (2004) took place. From July 2000 until December 2001, he was the State Department’s Deputy Special Negotiator for Eurasian Conflicts with an OSCE mandate to mediate the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. His work on conflict resolution also focused on Abkhazia (Georgia) and Transnistria (Moldova). A graduate (2000) of the National War College, Ken has been a Foreign Service Officer since June 1980. He is the recipient of the Department’s highest award, the Superior Honor Award, as well as several Meritorious Honor Awards.
As Political Officer in Embassy Moscow 1987-89, he covered the Caucasus at a time when nationalist ferment was reemerging. Most of Ken’s assignments in the State Department and abroad have been connected to European or Russian/Soviet affairs. He served as Soviet Desk Officer in the Department (1984-86). As Officer-in-Charge of Portuguese Affairs (1989-92), he helped negotiate the Azores Base Agreement with Portugal. While in Rome (1992-96) as Political Officer and Political-Military Counselor, Ken also did a four-month volunteer tour in Serbia/Montenegro in 1994 with the Bosnia Border Monitor Mission organized by the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia, where he was in charge of the Central Border Sector. He was also the Deputy Chief of the Political Section (1996-99) in Pretoria, South Africa, during the post-apartheid transition. There he spearheaded efforts to remove restrictions on defense trade that had been imposed for sanctions busting during the apartheid years. He speaks fluent Spanish and Italian, good Russian and Czech, and some Polish.
A graduate of the University of Maine (BA, 1976), Ken received an MA in 1977 in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania and an MS in 2000 in National Security Studies from the National War College. Before entering the Foreign Service, he was a doctoral candidate in International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania. During that time he was a Teaching Fellow at Penn and an instructor at Rosemont College.
Born in Philadelphia in 1953, Ken is married to Barbara Dillon Hillas. Their home is in Alexandria, Virginia. They have four children, Kenneth III (24), Duart (22), Bryant (21), and Adriana (13).
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