John M. Ordway was sworn in as the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Kazakhstan on August 30, 2004.

Ambassador Ordway most recently served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Armenia from November 2001 to August 2004. A career Foreign Service Officer since 1975, he has an extensive background in Soviet and Russian affairs, as well as experience in European security affairs, conflict resolution, and peacekeeping operations. Mr. Ordway served abroad at the U.S. Embassies in Prague (1978-1981) and Moscow (1985-87), and in Brussels at the U.S. Mission to NATO (1993-1995). He was in Moscow from 1996-2001, serving the last two years as Deputy Chief of Mission. While in Moscow, he also was chairman of Anglo-American School Board during the successful construction of a new 1200-student facility.

In Washington, Mr. Ordway worked in the State Department’s Press Office, the Office of Southern African Affairs, and twice in the Office of Soviet Union Affairs. He served twice as Director of African Affairs for the National Security Council (NSC). During this period, he was a member of the U.S. negotiating team that achieved and then helped implement the agreement that led to Cuban withdrawal from Angola and the independence of Namibia. At the NSC, he was deeply involved in the decision-making process in 1992-1993 that led to American military participation in efforts to overcome starvation in Somalia. His foreign languages include Russian, French, Italian, Czech, and Armenian.

Mr. Ordway was born in California, where he attended public schools and Stanford University. Before graduating in history in 1972, he studied for nine months in Florence, Italy. He is also a 1975 graduate of the University of California’s Hastings College of Law and completed a year of advanced graduate work in Soviet and Eastern European studies at the University of California, Berkeley in 1981-1982.