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 You are in: Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs > Bureau of Public Affairs > Bureau of Public Affairs: Electronic Information and Publications Office > Biographies > Biographies Listed Alphabetically by Last Name 
Picture of Patricia McMahon HawkinsBIOGRAPHY

Patricia McMahon Hawkins
Ambassador, Togo
Term of Appointment: 08/22/2008 to present

Patricia Hawkins was nominated by President Bush on April 29, 2008 to become the next ambassador to the Togolese Republic.  Ambassador Hawkins was sworn in on August 22, 2008. She arrived at post on September 10, 2008 and presented her credentials to the Togolese President on September 12, 2008.

Patricia Hawkins, a career foreign service officer, joined the United States International Communications Agency, later USIA, in 1980. Her first tour was in Paris, where she served as the Assistant Information Officer and Deputy Press Attaché. She subsequently served as Information Officer in Kinshasa, Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, as Public Affairs Officer in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, as Cultural Affairs Officer in Bogotá, Colombia, as Counselor for Public Affairs in Abidjan, Cộte d’ Ivoire, where she also served briefly as Acting DCM and then for several months as Chargé d’Affaires.  In 2001, she was posted to the Dominican Republic, as Counselor for Public Affairs. Her most recent assignments have been in Washington, DC, as Policy Application and Coordination Officer in the Office of Public Affairs of the Bureau of African Affairs, and as a Career Development Officer in the Bureau of Human Resources. 

At USIA headquarters in Washington, D.C., she was the Country Affairs Officer for the eight countries of Francophone West Africa, and Policy Application and Coordination Officer (PACO) in the office of USIA’s Assistant Director. She also served as the Public Affairs Advisor to the U.S. Delegation to the CSCE Conference on the Human Dimension, in Paris in 1989. During a three year hiatus from the Foreign Service, Pat served as the Executive Assistant to the President and CEO of Otis Elevator Company, in Farmington, Connecticut.

A native of Pennsylvania, Pat attended Barnard College in New York City and graduated from East Stroudsburg University with a B.S. in Education. She studied French at Georgetown University, the Université de Dijon, and NYU. Before joining the Foreign Service, Pat taught in both elementary and secondary schools in France and Pennsylvania. She and her husband, Richard S.D. Hawkins, also a career Foreign Service Officer, have two grown children, Frédéric and Jessica.

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Released on August 22, 2008

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