The U.S.-U.A.E. Business Council-hosted lunch and discussion will focus on further developments in the Arabian Gulf and how they have affected American policy and commerce.  Following Deputy Secretary Seche‘s remarks, the floor will be opened for a substantive discussion about the current state of affairs in the region.  For reference, a biography of DAS Seche can be found below.

Stephen A. Seche
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs

Ambassador Stephen A. Seche assumed his duties as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Arabian Gulf in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs on August 24, 2011.  He served as U.S. Ambassador to Yemen from August 2007-August 2010, and spent the intervening year as a Research Associate at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.

From February 2005-August 2006, Mr. Seche served as Charge d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, Syria, following the departure of the Ambassador in the wake of the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri; he was Deputy of Chief of Mission for the six months prior.  This was Mr. Seche’s second tour in Damascus:  from 1999-2002, he was Counselor for Public Affairs and Director of the American Cultural Center.  He spent the two years between his Damascus assignments as Director of the Office for Egypt and Levant Affairs at the Department of State.

Mr. Seche has spent most of his 33 years as a foreign-service officer engaged in the practice of public diplomacy.  He spent the first seven years of his career in public diplomacy positions in Guatemala, Peru, and Bolivia.  Other overseas assignments have included four years (1989-1993) as Information Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, Canada, and four years (1993-1997) as Press Attache at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, India.  Following his service in India, he returned to Washington for the first of two years of Arabic language training, completing the program at the Foreign Service Institute’s Field School in Tunis.  During the 2006-07 academic  year, Mr. Seche was a Visiting Fellow at the University of Southern California, where he taught in the master’s degree program in public diplomacy.

Mr. Seche received his B.A. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and spent four years as a journalist before entering the Foreign Service.  He is married to Susan Canning; the couple has three daughters.