THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

THE PRESIDENT NAMES AMBASSADOR TO ALBANIA

The President today announced the nomination of Marisa Lino of Oregon, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Counselor, as Ambassador to the Republic of Albania.

Ms. Lino has been working for the last two years as the Deputy Executive Secretary of State. Her previous assignments include tours as Consul General in Florence, Italy; Refugee Program Coordinator in Islamabad, Pakistan; Economic and Commercial Officer in both Damascus and Baghdad; and Administrative Officer in Rome, Italy. She served in the Operations Center in Washington D.C., and as Administrative Assistant to the Policy and Planning Staff. She also had a training assignment in Lima, Peru.

Born in the Free Territory of Trieste (now part of Italy) in 1950, Ms. Lino emigrated to the United States with her parents at 5 years of age. She grew up in Portland, Oregon, attending the University of Oregon and Portland State University where she received a B.A. in Political Science. As a Scottish Rite Fellow from Oregon, she attended George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and was granted an M.A. in international affairs. She also attended the University of Zagreb as a gradate student through a program sponsored by the Oregon State System of Higher Education and later, in a mid-career program, she completed a year of graduate work in systems analysis at M.I.T. Ms. Lino speaks Italian, French, Spanish, Serbo-Croatian and Arabic. She is single.

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