Stephen M. Chaplin

Mr. Chaplin "was born in Charleston, South Carolina on December 28, 1940. His father was a newspaper editor and his mother a homemaker. He has one young sister, Jerri Chaplin of Charleston, S.C. He is married to Carol McCloskey Chaplin, an attorney with the Board of Veterans Appeals in the Department of Veterans Affairs and has two sons, Christoper D. Chaplin of Pasadena, California and Jonathan B. Chaplin of Glenwood Springs, Colorado.

"Mr. Chaplin graduated from high school in New Orleans, received his B.A. from Kenyon College in Gambier,Ohio and an M.A. in American History from the University of California at Los Angeles. He served three years as a Public Information Officer in the U.S. Air Force from 1962-65 at Maxwell AFB, Alabama. Mr. Chaplin worked at USIA as a summer intern in 1966 and entered the foreign service in June, 1968. After Spanish language instruction he was assigned to Buenos Aires. Next he was assigned to Mexico City and then to Hermosillo in Northwestern Mexico where he was a Branch Public Affairs Officer. Mr. Chaplin attended the Sino-Soviet Studies Institute in George Washington University for a semester prior to Romanian language training and a three year assignment as Director of the American Library in Bucharest from 1974-77. He next worked in Washington first as a Management Analyst, then Desk Officer for France/Spain/Portugal and later as Chief of Fast Policy Guidance in the P Bureau. In 1982

"Mr. Chaplin studied Portuguese and was assigned as Counselor for Public Affairs in Lisbon. In 1986 he returned to become first Chief of Foreign Service Personnel, and was then Executive Assistant to the Director of USIA and Deputy Director of USIA. In 1990 he was assigned as Counselor for Public Affairs in Caracas. In 1994 he was assigned back to Washington as Chief of the Resource Management Committee staff. In 1995 he began a two year tour as Director of the Office of Inter-American Affairs where he was responsible for managing USIA staff in Washington, Latin America and the Caribbean and a $40 million annual budget. In the fall of 1997 he was again assigned as Chief of the Resource Management Committee staff and served as a steering group member for the USIA team in negotiations with the Department of State on the integration of USIA into the Department. In addition he headed the Communications Team that was responsible for keeping all USIA, State and USAID employees in Washington and abroad informed of the decisions made related to integration. He retired on October 31, 1999 and since that time, among other assignments; he has chaired the Mexican Advanced Area Studies Course at the Department of State's Foreign Service Institute."

Member of the Public Diplomacy Council.