Robert Becker is a former U.S. foreign service officer and deputy head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Mission in Croatia. A specialist on Germany, Central Europe and the Balkans, Becker has enjoyed a 34-year career with the U.S. State Department that has included two assignments in Greece spanning five years during crises in the Aegean and southern Balkans, as well positions in Germany and Brussels. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Becker established the first U.S. Consulate General -- the first in a former Warsaw Pact country -- in Leipzig in the former German Democratic Republic. Earlier in his career, he directed the Political Officers' Training Division of the Foreign Service Institute and served as a foreign affairs and security advisor to U.S. Congressman Dick Cheney (R-Wyoming) and Senator Gary Hart (D-Colorado).
A native of Washington, D.C., who grew up in Falls Church, Va., Becker earned a bachelor's degree in German from Carleton College and a master's degree from the University of Minnesota, where he also has completed all the course work for his Ph.D. At the end of his assignment in Croatia, Becker was recognized with the Croatian Helsinki Committee Human Rights Award, the first foreigner to receive the honor.
