CONSUL GENERAL
Biography
Steven Kashkett became U.S. Consul General in Tijuana in August 2009. Immediately prior to this assignment, he served for four years as the elected head of the American Foreign Service Association, the labor union for U.S. diplomats, at the Department of State.
A member of the Senior Foreign Service, Mr. Kashkett has been a career diplomat since 1983. He served as U.S. Consul General in eastern Canada, based in Halifax, in 2001-2003. His previous overseas tours of duty, as a political officer, included the U.S. embassies in Beirut (Lebanon), Paris (France), and Port-au-Prince (Haiti), and the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem.
In Washington, Steven Kashkett served as Director of the Middle East Partnership Initiative and in the Near Eastern and European bureaus, respectively, as country officer in charge of Algeria and Ireland/Northern Ireland. From 1998-2001, Mr. Kashkett was Senior Advisor to the State Department's Coordinator for Counterterrorism. Within the State Department, Steven Kashkett holds six Superior Honor Awards and the 1992 Director General's Award for Reporting.
Mr. Kashkett entered the Foreign Service after completing undergraduate and graduate studies in foreign relations and public administration at Harvard University. He is accompanied in Tijuana by his wife Wendy and his daughter Marissa. He speaks French and Spanish.