Ambassador Luis E. Arreaga was nominated by President Barack Obama as Ambassador to the Republic of Iceland on April 22, 2010. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on August 5, 2010, and sworn in on September 10, 2010. He presented his credentials to Icelandic President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson on September 20, 2010. Ambassador Arreaga is a career member of the Foreign Service with the rank of Minister Counselor. Before his nomination as Ambassador to the Republic of Iceland, he led State Department efforts to recruit and hire the largest increase in Foreign Service personnel in the U.S. State Department history.
He previously served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the United States Embassy in Panama, U.S. Consul General in Vancouver, Canada and as director of the Executive Secretariat Staff at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. He has also served as Deputy Director of the State Department´s Operations Center and Special Assistant to the Under Secretary for Political Affairs. Other overseas postings include United States Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, the United States Embassy in Spain, and the Agency for International Development in Peru, El Salvador, and Honduras.
Luis Arreaga was born and raised in Guatemala before immigrating to the United States. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee where he received a PhD in economics and a Masters Degree in Management.
