Speakers

Ryan Clark Crocker is a former career ambassador within the United States Foreign Service and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He has served as United States Ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait, and Lebanon. In 2010, he became Dean of Texas A&M University's George Bush School of Government and Public Service.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell called Crocker "one of our very best foreign service officers." President George W. Bush called him America's Lawrence of Arabia.

Crocker was born in Spokane, Washington and attended University College Dublin and Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in English literature in 1971.