New US ambassador arrives tomorrow

Oct 02, 2008 News

New U.S. Ambassador to Guyana, John Melvin Jones

John Melvin Jones, of Virginia, the newly-appointed ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, will arrive in Guyana tomorrow.
Jones, who was appointed earlier this year, is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, and up until recently, served as the Civilian Leader of a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Iraq.
Prior to that, he served as a Senior Inspector in the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of State.
Earlier in his career, he served as a Senior Representative in the Office of Counterterrorism at the Department of State.  He had also served as State Department Representative on the Foreign Terrorist Asset Targeting Group.
Other assignments overseas have been as Consul General in Honduras; Deputy Chief of Mission in Burkina Faso; Consul General in Brussels; Refugee Officer in Bangkok, and Consular Officer in Dominican Republic.
Raised in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, Jones attended Howard University in Washington DC for both undergraduate and law degrees.
After gaining an MBA from the Wharton School at Penn, he practised law in Philadelphia, then joined the Foreign Service in 1981.
He is a 1994 graduate of the National War College.
Some additional US assignments have included the Office of the Inspector General; Senior Watch Officer in the State Department Operations Center; Deputy in the Office of West African Affairs as well as Deputy for Regional Political and Military Affairs in the Bureau of European Affairs.
Jones was also Senior Advisor to the Inter-American Defense Board and Faculty Advisor at the Inter-American Defence College.
The recipient of many awards, Jones has received the Time Magazine “Current Events Award” and has also been awarded several Meritorious and Superior awards for Honour and Performance at the Department of State.
He earned his Bachelor’s degree at Howard University, and his MBA at the University of Pennsylvania. He also holds an MS in Strategic Studies from the National Defense University.