Speaker biographies
Peter DeShazo was named director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in September 2004. Previously, he was deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs at the U.S. Department of State. During his career in the U.S. Foreign Service, Mr. DeShazo served as deputy U.S. permanent representative to the Organization of American States. He also directed the Office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs of the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs at the State Department; was area director for the Western Hemisphere at the U.S. Information Agency; and served at U.S. embassies and consulates in La Paz, Medellín, Santiago, Panama City, Caracas, and Tel Aviv. Mr. DeShazo is the author of Urban Workers and Labor Unions in Chile, 1902–1927 (University of Wisconsin Press, 1983) and various policy and academic articles. His op-eds and commentaries have appeared in leading U.S. and international media.
Carl E. Meacham is a senior professional staff member for Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. As such, he is the most senior Republican staffer in the U.S. Congress in charge of Latin America. Mr. Meacham joined the committee staff in January 2003 and has worked in the Senate since 2000 for both Republican and Democratic senators. Prior to that, he was the special assistant for the deputy secretary of commerce and worked as a civil servant in the Cuban Affairs Bureau at the U.S. Department of State. He is the author of several reports to the Committee on Foreign Relations, including “Playing with Fire: Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela” and “The Merida Initiative: ‘Gus, Drugs, and Friends.’”
The Honorable Hector E. Morales Jr. was confirmed on March 6, 2008, to be the U.S. permanent representative to the Organization of American States. In addition, Ambassador Morales is confirmed as a member of the board of directors of the Inter-American Foundation, an independent foreign assistance agency of the U.S. government working to promote equitable and responsive grassroots development in Latin America and the Caribbean. Previously, Ambassador Morales served as U.S. executive director to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and as alternate U.S. executive director to the IDB. He has nearly twenty years of experience in U.S. commerce in the Americas, both as a businessman and a lawyer. Prior to his position at the IDB, Ambassador Morales served as a consultant to companies focused on providing financial services to the Latin American and U.S. Hispanic markets. He was formerly senior vice president of Viamericas Corporation, a pathbreaking company that offered the first prepaid money transfer card in the United States to the Latin American remittance market. Between 1997 and 2000, Ambassador Morales served in Argentina as president and general manager of Reliant Energy Argentina. He joined Reliant Energy, a publicly traded company based in Houston, Texas, in 1993 as an attorney in the international law department. In 1995, he became director of project development for Latin America and the Caribbean. Before joining Reliant, Ambassador Morales was in private practice as a business lawyer at Graves, Dougherty, Hearon & Moody in Austin, Texas, and Crain, Caton & James in Houston, Texas.
Roger F. Noriega is a visiting fellow at AEI, coordinating the Institute’s program on Western Hemisphere issues. Twice appointed by President George W. Bush (and confirmed by the U.S. Senate) and with a ten-year career on Capitol Hill, Mr. Noriega’s breadth of experience offers strategic vision and practical insight on the Americas. As assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, Mr. Noriega managed a 3,000-person team of professionals in Washington, D.C., and fifty diplomatic posts to design and implement political and economic strategies in Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean. As U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Mr. Noriega coordinated complex and sensitive multilateral diplomacy in a thirty-four-member international organization to bolster OAS efforts to promote trade, fight illicit drugs, and defend democracy. Mr. Noriega has held various other positions, including senior policy adviser with the U.S. mission to the OAS; many program management and public affairs positions with the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Department of State; press secretary and foreign policy adviser for former representative Robert Whittaker (R-Kans.); and research assistant for the secretary of state of Kansas.
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