Consul General
U.S. Consul General in Chiang Mai Kenneth L. Foster
Kenneth L. Foster
Ken Foster arrived in Chiang Mai to take up his duties as Consul General on January 18, 2012.
Ken grew up in Fairfax, Virginia. He is a graduate of Columbia University/SIPA (MIA 1986) and Lehigh University (BA 1984). He speaks Thai, Khmer, French and Haitian Creole.
Ken joined the Foreign Service in 1987 and first served as a consular officer in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, from 1988-89. He then returned to Washington and was the Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA) staff assistant from 1989-90, and a consular officer in the Office of Overseas Citizen Services (CA/OCS) covering Southeast Asia from 1990-91. After studying Khmer (1991-1992), Ken joined the Office of Admissions, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM/A) as a refugee officer from 1992-94. He went back overseas as the consular chief in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, from 1994-1996, returned to the U.S. in 1996-97 to learn Thai, and then served in Bangkok 1997-2000 as the visa section chief. He started a new professional direction in 2001 and served as the Public Affairs Officer in Phnom Penh. He then joined the Office of Public Diplomacy, Bureau of East Asian Affairs (EAP/PD) in 2002 as the country coordinator for Mainland Southeast Asia. He left that tour early to take an assignment in 2003 as the special assistant in Office of the Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs (R), and then served as the senior projects officer in the Office of the Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) for six months in 2004. Ken was the Cultural Affairs Officer in Bangkok (2004-2008), and then served as a Program Officer in the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration at the Department of State from 2008-2009. From June 2009 to January 2012 Ken was the Counselor for Public Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok.