STAFF BIOS

WILLIAM C. VEALE
Executive Director

Mr. Veale assumed his duties as the first Executive Director of the Association in April 1999. Since then he has established the Association as a premier business organization for promoting interest and investment in Kazakhstan. He has also forged close ties with U.S. congressional and executive branch offices to advance understanding of Kazakhstan's investment potential and steady reform efforts. Mr. Veale has twice served as a panelist at the World Economic Forum's Eurasia Economic Summits held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in April 2000 and 2002.

Previously, Mr. Veale served as a career Foreign Service Officer with the Department of State in Washington and in Europe and Asia. His last assignment was as Foreign Policy Advisor to the Special Coordinator for Cooperative Threat Reduction in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where during 1995-98 he was responsible for Nunn-Lugar counter-proliferation assistance programs in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. From 1992-95, he worked on international space cooperation at the Department of State, and helped negotiate Russia's entry into the International Space Station partnership. Earlier in his diplomatic career, Mr. Veale served at Embassies, Missions, and Consulates abroad. He did political work in Rangoon, Burma, during considerable unrest; political-military work in Cold War-era Berlin; and economic-commercial work in Strasbourg, France. In Washington, at the Department of State and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, he worked on arms control, political-military, Soviet, and African affairs.

Mr. Veale speaks French and German, some Burmese and studied Russian. He taught political science at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado, and, after active military service in Germany and Vietnam, he served as a reserve officer in the United States Army. Mr. Veale was graduated from Georgetown University with both Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Foreign Service. He is married and has four children.