Tamara Fitzgerald
Throughout her nearly three decades with the Department of State, Tamara "Tammy" Fitzgerald completed 10 overseas assignments, including service at U.S. Embassies in Port of Spain, Moscow, Minsk, Berlin, Canberra, and Baghdad. During her career, Ms. Fitzgerald served as the U.S. Deputy Permanent Representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague, and as Arms Control Counselor in the U.S. Mission to International Organizations in Vienna. In these roles she negotiated with diplomats from over 150 countries, first on the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), and in Vienna on the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, as well as on other nuclear and conventional arms and export control regimes.
Ms. Fitzgerald served as the Foreign Policy Advisor (POLAD) in ISAF HQ’s CJ-9 Civil-Military Affairs Division in Kabul working on governance issues in Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), and then as the POLAD to U.S. Air Forces Central Command (USAFCENT) in Qatar where she provided diplomatic guidance to the three-star Commander. Ms. Fitzgerald also worked in the Department of State in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, dealing with arms control treaties. She was also the State Department Advisor to the U.S. Army War College’s Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI). She retired from State Department in 2018. Since her retirement, Ms Fitzgerald has been very active in her local Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion posts, as well as in her church, public speaking on foreign affairs matters, and leading a locally developed scholarship program called Victims of Communism.
Ms. Fitzgerald graduated from the University of Colorado with a B.A. in Central and East European Affairs and Russian Language Studies, and from the National War College with an M.S. in National Security Strategy. She served in West Berlin in the mid-1980s as a U.S. Army Russian linguist. She speaks Russian and German.