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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release October 14, 1995

             PRESIDENT NAMES ROBERT E. GRIBBIN III TO BE 
                AMBASSADOR TO THE REPUBLIC OF RWANDA

     The President today announced his intention to nominate Robert

E. Gribbin III of Alabama, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service as Ambassador to the Republic of Rwanda.

Ambassador Gribbin, who is currently completing an assignment as Ambassador to the Central African Republic, has over 25 years of diplomatic and development experience in Africa. A former Peace Corps Volunteer, he has served as the desk officer for Rwanda at the Department of State in Washington (1977-1979) and as the Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy in Kigali (1979-1981). Ambassador Gribbin was the principal officer in Mombasa, Kenya (1981-1984) and the Deputy Chief of Mission Kampala, Uganda (1989-1991). He was the Deputy Director of the Office of East African Affairs, a member of the 34th Senior Seminar and a Senior Advisor for Africa to the U.S. delegation to the United Nations.

Ambassador Gribbin was born February 5, 1946 in North Carolina and raised in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He received a B.A. from the University of the South in 1968 and a M.A. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. in 1973. He worked as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya from 1968-1970. Ambassador Gribbin is fluent in French and Swahili. He is married to Connie Chapman. They have two sons, Matt 19, and Mark 16.

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