Dennis K. Hays
Dennis K. Hays is a retired career member of the U.S. Senior Foreign Service. Ambassador Hays joined the Service in 1976 and served overseas in the Caribbean, Africa, and South America. He also worked as an advance man for Presidential and Vice-Presidential visits overseas, and was twice elected President of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), the union and professional voice of the Foreign Service worldwide. Ambassador Hays was the Coordinator for Cuban Affairs at the Department of State from 1993 to 1995 until resigning from that position over a policy change involving forceable repatriation he could not support. He was reassigned and served as Director of the Office for Mexican Affairs before being confirmed as the United States Ambassador to the Republic of Suriname.
After leaving the Foreign Service Ambassador Hays has served in senior executive positions with a foreign policy organization, a lobbying firm, a nuclear technology startup and a firm promoting the rule of law and police reform internationally. Currently he provides political risk analysis for the petroleum industry in Guyana and Suriname and works with the US Army providing training in phycological operations and how to interact with foreign governments and populations. He is the immediate past president of the Reston Citizens Association and active in land use and development issues.
Ambassador Hays has been awarded the State Department’s Superior Honor Award four times (1981, 1987, 1991 and 1995). He received the Christian Herter Award for Intellectual Courage and Creative Dissent in 1996, the Inspector General's Award for best managed embassy, the Order of the Palm from the Republic of Suriname in 2000 and the Civic Champion Award from the College of Arts and Sciences in 2018.
Education
➤ MPA from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
➤ National War College, Ft. McNair, Washington
➤ BA in American Studies, from the University of Florida