US Ambassador Leaves Sofia over State Department Promotion

US Ambassador to Bulgaria, Nancy McEldowney, is leaving Sofia in the early fall to assume new State Department position. Photo by BGNES

The Obama Administration has asked US Ambassador to Bulgaria, Nancy McEldowney, to return to Washington to assume a new position.

McEldowney is Obama's choice to become Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs.  She expects to take up her new assignment in early fall, and will remain in Bulgaria until late summer.   

The news was announced by the US Embassy in Sofia press office Tuesday.

The Administration is already working to identify a successor to Ambassador McEldowney.  There will be a Charge d'Affaires at the Embassy until the next Ambassador is in place. 

Nancy McEldowney, who has an extensive diplomatic career with the US State Department, was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Bulgaria in January, 2008 by President George W. Bush. She assumed her post in Sofia in August, 2008.

Nancy McEldowney graduated in 1976 from Clearwater High School in Florida and received her bachelor's degree from New College and her master's degrees from Columbia University and the National Defense University.

Previous posts include: Deputy chief of the United States Mission in Ankara, Turkey; Office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon; and director of European Affairs on the National Security Council at the White House; and overseas posts including Baku, Azerbaijan; Bonn, Germany; and Cairo.

She is married to Tim Hayes, a retired U.S. Air Force pilot who flew F-5 and F-15 aircraft, and has two daughters - Jessica, 7, and Alyssa, 2.

 

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