The Foreign Service Journal, December 2022

24 DECEMBER 2022 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL The Power of BeingThere AnnePatterson as Leader,Thinker, andMentor A Conversation with the 2022 Recipient of the AFSA Award for Lifetime Contributions to American Diplomacy FOCUS AFSA AWARDS: HONORING EXCELLENCE AND CONSTRUCTIVE DISSENT A mbassador Anne W. Patterson, a four-time chief of mission, two-time assistant secre- tary of State, and a leader, thinker, mentor, and role model during her remarkable 43-year Foreign Service career, is this year’s recipient of the American Foreign Service Association’s Award for Life- time Contributions to American Diplomacy. (For coverage of the Oct. 19 ceremony, see AFSA News, page 63) . Patterson is the 28th recipient of this prestigious award, given annually in recognition of a distinguished practitioner’s career and enduring devotion to diplomacy. Past honorees include George H.W. Bush, Thomas Pickering, Ruth A. Davis, George Shultz, Richard Lugar, Joan Clark, Ronald Neumann, SamNunn, Rozanne Ridgway, Nancy Powell, Thomas Boyatt, WilliamHarrop, Herman “Hank” Cohen, Edward Perkins, and John D. Negroponte. Anne Woods Patterson was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas, in 1949. She attended the Hockaday School in Dallas, Texas, and earned a bachelor’s degree fromWellesley College in 1971 before attending graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ambassador Patterson joined the State Department Foreign Service in 1973 and held a variety of both economic and politi- cal assignments, including in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs. Her first overseas posting was in Ecuador (1974- 1977) as an economic officer. She later served as economic officer and counselor in Saudi Arabia (1984-1988), one of the first female diplomats to serve there. Ambas- sador Patterson went on to serve as political counselor to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Geneva (1988-1991), office direc- tor for Andean affairs (1991-1993), deputy assistant secretary for Central America and the Caribbean (1993-1995), and deputy assistant secretary of Interamerican affairs (1996). She then returned to Latin America, where she served as U.S. ambassador to El Salvador from 1997 to 2000, supporting its reconciliation process in the aftermath of that country’s long civil war. From 2000 to 2003, she was ambassador to Colombia at the beginning of Plan Colombia, a multiyear, billion-dollar program to arrest Colombia’s decline into drug trafficking and violence. From 2003 to 2004, Ambassador Patterson was State Depart- ment deputy inspector general. She served as deputy perma- nent representative and acting permanent representative to the United Nations from 2004 to 2005, and from 2005 to 2007 she was assistant secretary of State for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs. After holding these critical posts, Ambassador Patterson