During 39 years as a Foreign Service Officer, Bill Harrop served as ambassador to Guinea, Kenya, Seychelles, Zaire and Israel. He was Inspector General of the State Department and Foreign Service, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, a member of the State Department’s Policy Planning and Coordination Staff, and Deputy Chief of Mission to Australia. He served also in Italy and Belgium.

He was elected Chairman of the American Foreign Service Association, and holds the State Department Distinguished Honor Award, the Presidential Distinguished Service Award, the Foreign Service Cup and the AFSA Award for Lifetime Contributions to American Diplomacy. He retired from government service in May, 1993.

Harrop was born February 19, 1929 in Baltimore. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard and did graduate work at the University of Missouri School of Journalism and Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He served in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War.

He chairs the Diplomacy Center Foundation, and is a director of The American Academy of Diplomacy, The Senior Living Foundation of the American Foreign Service, American Diplomacy Publishers and the The Washington Humane Society. He was earlier on the board of the Henry L. Stimson Center and Chairman of Population Services International.

He and his wife of 63 years, the former Ann Garnsey Delavan, have four sons and six grandchildren.