Ambassador’s latest tour: Palau

Ambassador Amy Hyatt’s 31-year career as a diplomat began as an impulse decision. “I was working as a litigation attorney in San Francisco,” the 1978 Harpur College graduate says. “I enjoyed practicing law, but I thought it would be fun to take a sabbatical and go overseas.”

In 1985, Hyatt decided to take the Foreign Service Exam, a rigorous three-part test that takes about a year to complete. After passing the exam, she was assigned to a seven-week orientation course at the Department of State’s National Foreign Affairs Training Center. Two months later, she was sworn in as a Foreign Service Officer (FSO). “I thought I’d do one tour (as an FSO) and go back to San Francisco, where they were holding my job for me,” she says.

“I was assigned to South Korea and received Korean language training. During my tour in Korea, the Olympic Games came to Seoul, which was very exciting.” Deciding to postpone her return to San Francisco, Hyatt opted for another tour, this time in Oslo, Norway. “I already spoke Norwegian, because I’d studied there for a year as a Rotary Exchange Student,” she says. “After accepting that assignment I decided to tell the folks in San Francisco that I wasn’t coming back.” Since that time, Hyatt has had tours in Thailand, the Philippines, Czech Republic, Finland, Egypt and Australia. She also had a tour in Washington, D.C., where she worked on negotiations related to North Korea’s nuclear program.

When the talks were concluded, Hyatt notes that “We had succeeded in capping the North Korean nuclear program for 10 years. To be involved in something like that was very rewarding.” Now in the midst of her ninth embassy tour, Hyatt is the U.S. ambassador to Palau, a nation comprising more than 500 islands in the western Pacific Ocean near Micronesia. Hyatt transferred to Palau from Cairo, Egypt, and says that the transfer process itself is relatively simple. “When it is time to be reassigned, you get a list of what’s available around the world. You put in a request for six or seven of those locations,” she says.

“Then there’s a negotiation. I have been very lucky and have almost always gotten my first choice.” Stationed in Palau’s capital, Koror, Hyatt recently confronted a severe drought that created serious water shortages throughout the country. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association had projected that without assistance, Palau would run out of potable water by the middle of May 2016. As ambassador, Hyatt led the U.S. government effort to provide assistance to Koror.

Thanks to that aid, and the return of the rains, the situation in Palau is now much improved. “My job is to ensure that U.S. government efforts in Palau are coordinated,” Hyatt says. “We want to make sure we’re fixing problems, not just putting on Band-Aids.” Hyatt brought U.S. water experts to Palau to help locate new water sources and examine old infrastructure.

She also oversaw the efforts of Navy Seabees (naval engineers), who helped to deliver water and install desalinization equipment. To be effective in her role, Hyatt relies on good communication skills, which she honed during her years at Harpur College. “It was just a terrific education,” Hyatt says. “It opened my eyes to foreign affairs and I developed a great respect for government service.”

A 2016 recipient of the Edward Weisband Distinguished Alumna Award for Public Service, Hyatt credits Weisband himself for aiding her success. “I had Dr. Weisband as a professor, and he really inspired me,” she says. “When I was notified that I had been selected for the award, I couldn’t believe it.” Harpur College was the platform for her success, Hyatt says, enabling her admission into Stanford Law School. The Foreign Service, she says, provided additional training, including language instruction, before she left for her first tour.

“You really don’t have to study a particular field to join the Foreign Service,” she says. “They look for people with a variety of backgrounds who have well-developed leadership, communication, organizational and interpersonal skills. Then they train you in what you will need for a particular assignment.” With the personal rank of minister counselor, one of the most senior grades in the Foreign Service, Hyatt says that her job has afforded her opportunities that a law career could not. “It’s a fantastic career,” she says. “You have assignments in both the developed and the developing world, learning new cultures and languages.

You have to want to make a difference, though, because a particular assignment in the Foreign Service could place you in a position where you’ll be at a turning point of history.”