Bio
Ambassador Richard E. Hoagland was US principal deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs from October 2013 to August 2015.
Before returning to Washington, DC, in September 2013, Richard spent a decade in South and Central Asia. He was US deputy ambassador to Pakistan (2011–2013), US ambassador to Kazakhstan (2008–2011) and US ambassador to Tajikistan (2003–2006). He also served as US charge d’affaires to Turkmenistan (2007–2008).
Prior to his diplomatic assignments in Central Asia, he was director of the Office of Caucasus and Central Asian Affairs in the Bureau of Europe and Eurasian Affairs, Department of State (2001–2003). In that position, he wrote and negotiated four of the key bilateral documents defining the Central Asian states’ enhanced relationship with the United States in the aftermath of September 11. His earlier foreign assignments included serving in Russia, where he was press spokesman for the US embassy (1995–1998). Over the course of his career, he received multiple presidential performance awards, as well as the State Department Meritorious and Superior Honor Awards and Distinguished Honor Award.
Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Richard completed his graduate degrees at the University of Virginia and earned a certificate in French from the University of Grenoble, France. Before joining the Foreign Service in 1985, he taught English as a foreign language in the then Zaire (1974–1976) and African literature at the University of Virginia’s Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies.