Karl Stoltz

Karl Stoltz retired from the U.S. State Department of State in October 2024 after a 38-1/2 years as a Foreign Service Officer, primarily in Public Diplomacy positions. He served as an Assistant Information Officer in Wellington and Moscow; as Cultural Affairs Officer in Jakarta; as Branch Public Affairs Officer in Christchurch, NZ; and as Country PAO in Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, South Africa, and Russia.

He also served twice as Deputy Chief of Mission in Myanmar and Denmark. In Washington, D.C., Karl was Office Director for Public Diplomacy in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs and for Citizen Exchanges in ECA. He also served as Regional Exchanges and Cultural Coordinator in USIA’s East Asia bureau and as Public Diplomacy Fellow at George Washington University. Karl’s final job at State was acting Deputy Coordinator and Senior Advisor at the R Bureau’s Global Engagement Center (GEC).

In retirement, Karl teaches a graduate course at GWU, serves as Chair of the Walter Roberts Endowment, and works part-time as a foreign policy advisor for Deft 9 Solutions LLC. Karl is married to Tania Garry, who also has a prior background in public diplomacy with the governments of New Zealand and Australia. Karl speaks Russian, Indonesian, and Malaysian; his favorite free-time activities are travel, trivia contests, theatre, and music, and participation in Hash House Harriers hiking clubs.