Richard, Elizabeth Holzhall

<p>Elizabeth Richard was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on May 17, 2016, as the U.S. Ambassador to the Lebanese Republic.</p>

<p>She most recently served for nearly three years as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for U.S. Assistance. Prior to holding this position, she was the Deputy Chief of Mission in Sanaa, Yemen, from 2010 to 2013. She is a career foreign service officer, with 30 years of service.</p>

<p>From 2008 to 2010, Ms. Richard was the Border Coordinator in Islamabad, Pakistan, where she maintained oversight of all U.S. programs along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan to ensure that U.S. efforts were synchronized across both regions.</p>

<p>Her previous assignments included a year as director of counter narcotics and civilian police training programs in Afghanistan, two years as deputy to the special Ambassador for War Crimes issues, where she worked on Guantanamo bay issues and on U.S. support for international war crimes tribunals, and a year as special assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, where her responsibilities included non-proliferation and political-military issues.</p>

<p>Her other overseas assignments included Rome, Italy, where she worked for one year in the Italian Foreign Ministry and then joined the U.S. Embassy. She also served in Bangkok, Thailand, where she was special assistant to the Ambassador.</p>

<p>Ambassador Richard is a graduate of the National War College in Washington DC, and of the NATO Defense College in Rome, Italy. She has a law degree from Southern Methodist University and practiced admiralty law in Texas before joining the Foreign Service.</p>

<p>Elizabeth Holzhall Richard is an American diplomat and former United States Ambassador to Lebanon. She was nominated by President Barack Obama in February 2016 and confirmed by the Senate on May 17, 2016.</p>

<p>Richard is the daughter of Vern F. Holzhall and Mary V. Holzhall. She earned a B.A. from Southern Methodist University and a J.D. from Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law. She later earned an M.S. from the National War College.</p>

<p>Richard joined the Foreign Service in 1986. Her early career included assignments in Ecuador, Italy, Singapore, and Thailand. From 2002 to 2003 she was Special Assistant to the Under Secretary for Political Affairs. She then served two years as Deputy to the U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues. In 2005 she became Deputy Director of the Office of Asia, Africa, and Europe in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement and a year later became Director for Counter-Narcotics, Law Enforcement, and Rule of Law Programs in Kabul, Afghanistan. From 2008 to 2010 she served in Islamabad, Pakistan and from 2010 to 2013 she was Deputy Chief of Mission in Yemen.</p>

<p>When tapped by President Obama for an ambassador role, Richard was Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department, a role she had held since 2013.</p>

<p>Richard is the widow of Christopher John Richard.</p>

<p>Elizabeth H. Richard (?–)<br>
Career Foreign Service Officer<br>
State of Residence: Virginia</p>

<p>Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (Lebanon)<br>
Appointed: May 20, 2016<br>
Presentation of Credentials: December 1, 2016<br>
Termination of Mission: February 29, 2020</p>

<p>Elizabeth Mary Holzhall Richard, a career member of the Foreign Service, took over as Ambassador to Lebanon on July 11, 2016. It’s the first such posting for Holzhall Richard, who has spent much of her career in the Middle East.</p>

<p>Holzhall Richard was born in Hammond, Ind., where her father, Vern, was president of the Mercantile National Bank and her mother, Mary, was a travel agent. Holzhall Richard says she was bitten by the travel bug as a student at Kenwood Elementary School in Hammond. She attended Elizabeth Seton High School just across the state line in South Holland, Ill., working in a pharmacy during that period and graduating in 1977. She went on to earn a B.A. and a J.D. at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and practiced admiralty law for a while after graduation. However, one of her law professors had urged her to take the Foreign Service exam and she joined the State Department in 1986.</p>

<p>Holzhall Richard’s first day on the job was an eventful one: She met Christopher Richard, who was also just beginning his career. Two years later, he became her husband.</p>

<p>Her early assignments included being a consular officer in Guayaquil, Ecuador, a watch officer at the State Department operations center, and rotational officer at the U.S. embassy in Singapore.</p>

<p>Beginning in 1993, Holzhall Richard served as the department’s desk officer for Czechoslovakia. The following year she was sent to Bangkok as special assistant to the Ambassador to Thailand. In 1997, Holzhall Richard went to Rome, first as an exchange officer in the Italian Foreign Ministry, then as Balkans officer in the U.S. embassy.</p>

<p>She returned to Washington in 2002 as special assistant to the Under Secretary for Political Affairs, where she worked on non-proliferation. The next year, Holzhall Richard was deputy to the Ambassador At Large for War Crimes Issues, where she worked on tribunals for Guantanamo prisoners.</p>

<p>In 2005, she was made deputy director in the Office of Asia, Africa and Europe in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement. She continued in that field when she was sent to Kabul, Afghanistan in 2006 as director of counter-narcotics, law enforcement and rule of law programs there. After that assignment, she took time to earn an M.S. at the National War College in 2008.</p>

<p>Later that year, Holzhall Richard was back in South Asia as border coordinator at the embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan. In 2010, she was made Deputy Chief of Mission in Sana’a, Yemen, and was brought home in 2013 to serve as Deputy Assistant Secretary for U.S. assistance to the Middle East, a post she held until going to Beirut.</p>

<p>Holzhall Richard began her ambassadorial career in a bit of limbo. Lebanon had no president when she began her tenure and as such could officially be only chargé d’affaires until she could present her credentials to the head of state.</p>

<p>Holzhall Richard speaks Italian, Spanish, French and Thai. Her husband, who also made a career of the Foreign Service, died in 2015.</p>