A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Heather M. Hodges has served as the US ambassador to Ecuador since July 15, 2008. Hodges has a BA in Spanish from the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota, and an MA from New York University. She speaks fluent Spanish.
Hodges joined the Foreign Service in 1980 and was assigned to Caracas, Venezuela. Following Caracas, she served in Guatemala and later in Washington as Peru Desk Officer. In 1987, Hodges received a
Pearson Fellowship and served as counsel to the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugee Affairs. In January 1989, she became consul general at the US Consulate in Bilbao, Spain. In 1991, she returned to Washington to serve as deputy director of the Office of Cuban Affairs.
In 1993, Hodges was assigned to Managua, Nicaragua, as Deputy Chief of Mission. From August 1996 to June 1997, she participated in the State Department’s Senior Seminar, a leadership program for select members of the Foreign Service. She served as the Deputy Chief of Mission in Lima, Peru, from July 1997 to May 2000 and was also Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Madrid, Spain, from June 2000 to July 2003.
She served as US ambassador to Moldova from September 2003 to May 2006 and was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Office of the Director General Director before taking on her current assignment.