Samuel L. Kaplan

Samuel L. Kaplan

Samuel L. Kaplan has been the United States Ambassador to the Kingdom of Morocco since September 2009.  In this role, he serves as the personal representative of United States President Barack Obama.  Ambassador Kaplan sees his primary role as promoting and enhancing the President’s vision of a new beginning and a new understanding for United States relations with the Muslim world.

For almost two years, the people of Morocco have witnessed Ambassador Kaplan personally reach out to every sector of Moroccan society – political and business leaders, opinion molders in journalism and academia, students, farmers, and workers in every community large and small.  Ambassador Kaplan and his wife and partner, Sylvia Kaplan, have travelled widely in Morocco in pursuit of this mission.

Before entering the diplomatic service, Ambassador Kaplan was a well-known business and community leader in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he headed a law firm that he founded in 1978.  Ambassador Kaplan attended the University of Minnesota where he earned both an undergraduate and a law degree, graduating magna cum laude, and where he served as President of the University of Minnesota Law Review.  Ambassador and Mrs. Kaplan have been married for 36 years; they have six children and thirteen grandchildren, many of whom have visited them in Morocco.  Mrs. Kaplan is a restaurateur as well as a community and political activist.  Together, the Kaplans are a strong team, a shining example of how to take business talents and a passion for social justice and put them at work on the global scale.