Robert William Farrand, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service of the United States with the rank of Minister-Counselor, was appointed as Ambassador to Papua, New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu in April 1990 and served in that capacity until September 1993. In July 1995, Ambassador Farrand joined the State Department’s office of the Inspector General as Senior Inspector and Team Leader. Earlier, in October 1993, Ambassador Farrand served as international affairs advisor and senior civilian on the staff of the Commandant of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces at Fort McNair at Washington, D.C.
Between 1987 and 1990, Ambassador Farrand was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. From 1985-1987, he was Deputy Director of the Office of Foreign Service Career Counseling and Assignments (Personnel).
Farrand served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Prague, Czechoslovakia from 1983 to 1985. Prior to that he was Deputy Director of the Office of Eastern European and Yugoslav Affairs in the Department of State (1981-1982). He was Officer-in-Charge of Bilateral Affairs in the State’s Office of Soviet Affairs from 1978-1990. Farrand was Director of the U.S. Commercial Office in Moscow, U.S.S.R., from 1976 to 1978. Before that he was chief of the Economic/Commercial Section in the U.S. Embassy in Prague, Czechoslovakia from 1973-1976; Commodities Officer in the Bureau of Economics and Business Affairs at the Department of State, 1970-1973; and Chief of Consular Section at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, U.S.S.R. (1968-1970).
Farrand joined the Department of State in 1964 and spent his first consular and diplomatic tour at the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (1965-1967).
Ambassador Farrand received a Bachelor of Science degree from Mount Saint Mary’s College, Emmitsburg, Maryland, and a Master’s Degree in Economics from Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of the National War College.
He served as an officer in the U.S. Navy from 1957-1964 with three years of sea duty and three years as an economics instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Farrand was born in Watertown, New York and is married with five children.