Sunday, August 21, 2011
Career diplomat Frankie Annette Reed has been chosen to serve as ambassador to the Pacific island nations of Fiji, Tonga, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Nauru. Her Senate confirmation hearing was held on June 29, 2011, and she was confirmed on August 3.
A native of Baltimore, Reed holds a BA in journalism from Howard University and a JD from the University of California, Berkeley and was admitted to the California State Bar in 1979. Prior to joining the Foreign Service in 1983, she was a Peace Corps volunteer and a journalist.
Reed’s earlier overseas assignments included: political officer in Nairobi, Kenya and Yaoundé, Cameroon; political section chief in Dakar, Senegal, and deputy director in the Office of Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Island Affairs.
Her early work at the State Department involved being the desk officer in the Bureaus of African Affairs and Western Hemispheric Affairs.
From 1999 to 2002, Reed was deputy chief of mission in Apia, Samoa.
She served as deputy chief of mission in Conakry, Guinea from 2003-2005.
Reed was the consul general and deputy U.S. observer to the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France from 2005-2008.
She served as a diplomat-in-residence at the University of California, Berkeley, before becoming deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, responsible for relations with Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Island posts.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
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