Richard J. Schmierer was born in New Jersey circa 1952, and is married to Sandra Schmierer. They have one daughter and two sons.

 

Schmierer earned a B.A. from Lehigh University in 1974, and a Master’s (1975) and a Ph.D. (1977) in Linguistics from the University of Massachusetts. His doctoral dissertation concerned the Anglo-Saxon language. 

 

Schmierer is a State Department Foreign Service Officer and member of the Senior Foreign Service. He began his diplomatic career in 1980. During his first Foreign Service tour in Germany, from 1980 through 1984, he worked in Bonn, Frankfurt and Hamburg. Following a year of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies in Washington, DC, Schmierer served, from 1985 to 1988, as the Public Affairs Officer at the American Consulate General in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. 

 

From 1988 to 1992, Schmierer served at the headquarters of the U.S. Information Agency, first as the head of the Middle East office of the International Visitor Program, and later in the Agency’s Office of European Affairs. From 1992 to 1996, Schmierer served as the Press Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Bonn, which was the capital of West Germany. After additional Arabic and Middle Eastern studies, Schmierer returned to Saudi Arabia in August 1997, where he served as Counselor for Public Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, until June 2000.  

 

From June 2000 through June 2004 he served as Minister-Counselor for Public Affairs at the American Embassy in Berlin, Germany. From June 2004 to June 2005, he served as Embassy Counselor for Public Affairs in Baghdad, Iraq. In July 2005 Schmierer joined the staff of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service in Washington, DC. While at the Institute, Schmierer lectured on Iraq and published a book on the topic entitled Iraq: Policy and Perceptions. 

 

In July 2007 Schmierer was named Director, Office of Iraq Affairs in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs in the State Department. One year later, in June 2008, he was promoted to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. Confirmed by the Senate July 10, 2009, Schmierer succeeded career diplomat Gary A. Grappo, who began his term as ambassador to Oman on March 6, 2006. 

 

The post of U.S. ambassador to Oman has been occupied by career foreign service officers for 20 years, as the last political appointee as US Ambassador to Oman was George Cranwell Montgomery, who served from 1985 to 1989, after working for nine years for Sen. Howard Baker (R-Tennessee).  

 

The Future of U.S. Policy in Iraq (Foreign Policy Association (lecture by Richard J. Schmierer)