Asquino, Mark Louis, 1949-

Mark Louis Asquino (born 1949) is a career foreign service officer whose long career included postings in Latin America, Europe, Central Asia and Africa, most notably serving as Ambassador to Equatorial Guinea from October 2012 until September 2015.

Born in 1949 in East Providence, Rhode Island, Asquino earned his A.B. and Ph.D. in American Civilization at Brown University in 1971 and 1978, respectively. His doctoral thesis was titled, “Criticism in the Balance: The Literary Anthologist as Literary Critic and Promoter in Nineteenth-Century America.” From 1975 to 1976, Asquino was the Fulbright Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Oviedo in Spain, and was also a lecturer at the University of Rhode Island prior to entering the Foreign Service.

Asquino began his Foreign Service career with the U.S. Information Agency in 1978. Early overseas assignments included public affairs junior officer trainee at the embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, and assistant press officer at the embassy in Panama City, Panama. From 1982 to 1986, he served as director of the U.S. Cultural Center and assistant cultural affairs officer at the embassy in Madrid, Spain. Asquino also served as cultural affairs officer at the embassy in Bucharest, Romania, from 1991 to 1994, and as information officer at the embassy in Santiago, Chile, from 1994 to 1998.

After completing Russian language training, Asquino served as public affairs officer at the embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, from 1999 to 2002. At first, this was a quiet, backwater assignment. But after the U.S. decided to attack neighboring Afghanistan over its refusal to turn over Osama bin Laden for planning the September 11, 2001, attacks, Uzbekistan became a front-line state that the U.S relied upon for help in Afghanistan. As such, Asquino conducted regular briefings and assisted the hundreds of American and international journalists who came to Tashkent in those years.

From 2003 to 2006, Asquino was deputy chief of mission at the embassy in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where he directed the mission’s move to the new capital of Astana. Following this posting, he returned to Washington to serve as principal deputy coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) at the U.S. Department of State from 2006 to 2008.

Asquino was deputy chief of mission at the embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, from 2008 to August 2010, when he returned to Washington to serve as a Senior Public Diplomacy Fellow at George Washington University for the 2010-2011 academic year. He subsequently served as executive assistant in the Office of the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights.

He served as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Equatorial Guinea from October 2012 until September 2015. Upon completing his assignment there, the Government of Equatorial Guinea awarded him the country’s highest decoration, “The Grand Cross of the Order of Independence.” He retired from the U.S. Department of State in November 2015.

In the Spring of 2016, the U.S. Department of State asked that he return to government service from retirement to take a short-term assignment as Acting Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Port Louis, Mauritius. During his tour there, from June until August 2016, he led the embassy on a range of challenging political, economic and environmental issues in both Mauritius and the Seychelles.

He is married to Jane Asquino.