Ambassador Marc J. Sievers retired from the foreign service on November 30, 2019. He served as U.S. ambassador to Oman from January 2016 through November 2019. Sievers and his embassy team significantly advanced U.S.-Omani relations during a turbulent period characterized by war in neighboring Yemen, sharp shifts in U.S. policy toward Iran, and frictions among Oman’s Gulf neighbors. The U.S.-Arab Bilateral Chamber of Commerce declared him Goodwill Ambassador for 2019 due to his promotion of U.S. business. On January 31, 2020 he joined the Atlantic Council as a nonresident senior fellow in the council’s Middle East programs. Sievers has served with distinction in several of the Middle East’s most complex and challenging posts, including deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affaires in Cairo, Egypt from September 2011 to August 2014 and political minister-counselor in Baghdad, Iraq from August 2010 to August 2011. He previously held a range of posts including counselor for political affairs in Tel Aviv, Israel (2006-10), and deputy chief of mission in Algiers, Algeria (2003-06). In 2004, he was seconded to the Department of Defense as senior advisor to Iraq’s transitional Ministry of Foreign Affairs as part of the Coalition Provisional Authority. He also served as political counselor in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (1998-2001), deputy political counselor in Ankara, Turkey (1996-98), political officer in Rabat, Morocco (1989-92), and in Cairo (1986-89). In the Department of State, he has served in the Bureau of Near East Affairs and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Sievers received a BA from the University of Utah in 1978 and an MIA from Columbia University in 1980. His awards include the Department of State’s Superior Honor and Meritorious Honor awards, the Intelligence Community’s Agency Shield and Exceptional Collector awards, and the American Foreign Service Association’s Sinclaire Language Award for his study of Arabic.