A career officer in the U.S. Foreign Service with the rank of Minister Counselor, Phil Chicola joined the State Department in 1979 as a civil service employee.  He joined the Foreign Service in 1983.  Over the past two decades, Mr. Chicola has developed broad regional expertise and has dealt with some of Latin America’s most difficult questions.

Beginning in 1979, Mr. Chicola served as officer for Latin America in the Bureau of Refugee Affairs.  Between 1984 and 1986 he was Deputy Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala. From 1988 to 1993 he served there as Political Counselor and Deputy Chief of Mission at the American Embassy in San Salvador.  During his service there, Mr. Chicola played a central role in U.S. efforts to support the nascent Salvadoran democracy and in facilitating a negotiated end to that country’s civil war.  At the end of his tour there, Mr. Chicola was awarded the James Clement Dunn award for excellence.

Following one year at the Army War College, Mr. Chicola served as Economic-Political Counselor at the American Embassy in Santiago, Chile during the conclusion of that country’s transition from military dictatorship to elected civilian government.

In 1996, he returned to Washington to serve as Acting Director of the Office of Policy Planning and Coordination in the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs.  A year later, his experience in dealing with civil conflicts led to his being asked to serve as Senior Adviser to the UN Transitional Administrator for Eastern Slavonia, Croatia.

Beginning in July 1998, he served as the Director of the Office of Andean Affairs in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.  In this position he has dealt with some of the most significant policy challenges of the area including: the development of the $1.3 billion Plan Colombia Supplemental, the $900 million Andean Regional initiative, and follow-up funding for the region of about $800 million per year.  Other challenges that confronted by his office include: the end of the Fujimori era and Peru’s transition to democracy; managing the challenges that Venezuela’s new President Hugo Chavez represents to our regional policy; coordinating the successful efforts to restore democracy in Ecuador following the January 2000 coup; and ensuring that Bolivian democracy survived the resignation of President Gonzalez de Lozada in the fall of 2003.  Beginning in July 2004, Mr. Chicola became Deputy Chief of Mission in Brazil.

During the course of his State Department Career, Mr. Chicola has earned: three Superior Honor Awards (in the years 1984, 1993, and 2000); a Meritorious Honor Award in 1989; the Intelligence Collector of the Year Award in 1991; and the James Clement Dunn Award for Excellence in 1993.

A Cuban-American, Mr. Chicola came to the U.S. in 1961 and became a naturalized citizen in 1968.  Mr. Chicola is married and has three children.  He is a graduate of Florida Atlantic University and did his graduate work at Florida State University.