Ted Osius

Ted Osius
United States Ambassador to Vietnam
Incumbent
Assumed office December 16, 2014
President	Barack Obama
Deputy	Susan B. Sutton
Preceded by	David B. Shear
Personal details
Born	1961 (age 54–55) Annapolis, Maryland, United States[1]
Spouse(s)	Clayton Bond (m. 2006)
Alma mater	Harvard University Johns Hopkins University

Ted Osius (born 1961)^[2] is an American diplomat and the current United States Ambassador to Vietnam.^[3]

Early life and education

Osius grew up in Annapolis, Maryland.^[1] He attended The Putney School in Vermont, graduating in 1979.

Osius attended Harvard, where he wrote for The Harvard Crimson and attained a bachelor of arts in social studies.^[4] After graduating in 1984, he interned at the American University in Cairo for a year. He then worked as a legislative correspondent for Senator Al Gore from 1985 to 1987. Osius later attended the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, graduating with a master of arts in international economics and U.S. foreign policy in 1989.^[4]

Osius speaks Vietnamese, French and Italian, as well as a bit of Arabic, Hindi, Thai, Japanese, and Indonesian.^[4]

Career

Osius joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1989.^[4] Osius' first assignment was in Manila, from 1989 to 1991. Other early assignments included Vatican City and the United Nations.

In 1996, Osius was among the first U.S. diplomats to work in Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War. In 1997, he helped with the establishment of the U.S. consulate in Ho Chi Minh City.^[4] Osius returned to 1998 to advise Vice President Al Gore on Asian affairs. In 2001, Osius became regional environmental affairs officer at the U.S. embassy in Bangkok, Thailand. In 2004, he returned to Washington, D.C. to work as the deputy director of the Office of Korean Affairs in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. In 2008, Osius was assigned to New Delhi, India as political minister-counselor.^[3]

In 2009, Osius became the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia.^[3]

Osius returned again to Washington in 2012 to work as a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In 2013, he became an associate professor at National Defense University.^[4]

In May 2014, Osius was nominated by President Barack Obama to be U.S. ambassador to Vietnam.^[5] Osius was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in November 2014.^[6] As ambassador, Osius presented his credentials on December 16, 2014.^[3]

Personal life

Osius is openly gay.^[7] In 2004, Osius met his future husband, Clayton Bond, then a watch officer in the State Department's operations center, at a meeting of Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies. They were married in 2006 in Vancouver, Canada. He and Bond have one son.^[4][8]

References

1. "Ted Osius says Vietnam ambassadorship ‘dream come true’". Washington Blade. November 20, 2014. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
2. "How U.S. ambassador, his husband and their adopted babies have become the faces of Vietnam's flourishing gay rights movement". Daily Mail. August 2, 2015. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
3. "Ambassador Ted Osius". U.S. Department of State. December 16, 2014. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
4. "U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam: Who Is Ted Osius?". AllGov. August 10, 2014. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
5. "Ted Osius Becomes 7th Openly LGBT Person Nominated to Serve as Ambassador by Obama Administration". Human Rights Campaign. May 19, 2014. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
6. "Gay diplomat confirmed as U.S. ambassador to Vietnam". Washington Blade. November 18, 2014. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
7. "The six openly gay U.S. ambassadors were together in one room". Washington Post. March 25, 2015. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
8. "Meet Vietnam’s Gay Power Couple: U.S. Ambassador and His Husband". Bloomberg News. August 2, 2015. Retrieved March 11, 2016.