From Obama to Trump: What's Next in U.S. & Cuba Relations?

The Salt Lake Chamber and WTC Utah invite you to hear from retired U.S. diplomat Ambassador Vicki Huddleston as she speaks on potential changes to the U.S. embargo with Cuba with the new Trump presidency, along with her experiences in Cuba as the former Coordinator of Cuban Affairs at the State Department. 

Registration is complimentary.

ABOUT OUR SPEAKER: 

Ambassador Vicki Huddleston is an American diplomat with expertise in foreign, defense, and development policy. She was Ambassador to Mali and to Madagascar and acting Ambassador to Ethiopia. At the Department of State, she was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Africa with oversight responsibility for the administrative operations of the Africa Bureau. Vicki served on the Obama-Biden Transition team and was then appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, where she was responsible for policy guidance to the Secretary of Defense and the African Command (AFRICOM). More recently, she was Chief of Party in Haiti for a USAID capacity building project led by Research Triangle International. Vicki is currently a consultant with Transnational Strategies Group.

Vicki managed American policy toward Cuba as the Coordinator of Cuban Affairs at the State Department in Washington, D.C., under Presidents H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton from 1989 to 1993. Six years later she led our diplomatic mission to Havana?the United States Interests Section?from 1999 to 2002, under Clinton and President George W. Bush, before it was up-graded to an embassy in 2014. After leaving the State Department, she became a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, where she co-led a project on U.S. ? Cuba relations that resulted in a book, Learning to Salsa ? New Steps in U.S.- Cuban Relations that provides a blueprint for normalization of U.S. relations with Cuba.

Vicki received the Department of State?s Distinguished Honor Award, the Secretary?s Career Achievement Award, and a Presidential Meritorious Service Award. Vicki was a Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard?s Kennedy School of Government and an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow on the staff of former Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM).

She earned a Masters Degree, with distinction, from Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies in international relations and economics. She has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Colorado, where she is a distinguished alumnus. She began her overseas career as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru.

Vicki is married to Bob Huddleston; they have two children, Robert and Alexandra. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico where she is writing a book, Our Woman in Havana: A U.S. Diplomat's Chronicle of our Long Struggle with Fidel Castro's Cuba.