New US Consul General for Dutch Caribbean

Margaret Hawthorne has been appointed as the new United States Consul General to Curaçao, and Chief of Mission to Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, St. Eustatius and St. Maarten.

Hawthorne is a career member of the US Foreign Service with 25 years of experience as a diplomat; assumed her duties as Principal Officer of the US Consulate General in Curaçao and US Chief of Mission to the Dutch Caribbean, in April 2016.

Hawthorne previously served as the Director of the Crisis Management Training Division at the Foreign Service Institute in Washington, DC. Prior to that, she was the Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Belmopan, Belize from 2011- 2014, with 10 months as the Chargé d’Affaires.

Other overseas assignments included head of the Political External unit at the US Embassy in Moscow, Russia from 2007-2009, positions in Madrid, Spain; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; and the US Mission to the UN in New York. In Washington, D.C., her assignments have included the NATO affairs office, Chief of Staff to the Assistant Secretary for European Affairs, Senior France Desk Officer, and Director of Regional Affairs in the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism.

From 2009-2010, she was a Pearson Fellow on the House Foreign Affairs Committee in the US Congress, and she is a 2011 graduate of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF) at National Defence University. Ms. Hawthorne has received the State Department’s Superior and Meritorious Honour Awards.

Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Ms. Hawthorne was an attorney in Washington, D.C., specializing in civil litigation. A native of Chicago, Illinois, she holds a Juris Doctor (JD) from George Washington University, a Masters of Arts (MA) in International Relations from the University of Chicago, a Masters of Science (MSc) in National Security and Resource Strategy from ICAF, and a Bachelor of Arts (BA) from Denison University. She speaks Spanish, Russian and French.

The Daily Herald.