David Laurence Lyon retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in September 2005 following a 33-year career with the Department of State. His final posting was to Suva, Fiji, where he served as Ambassador to the Pacific Island countries of Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga &Tuvalu.
Since his retirement, Ambassador Lyon has been a consultant focusing primarily on Political-Military and Stabilization & Reconstruction issues. Current and recent clients have included the U.S. Army’s Training & Doctrine and Special Operations commands, the U.S. Marine Corps’ Combat Development Command, the U.S. Joint Forces Command, and U.S. Forces Korea. He has also worked with the Department of State, the Naval Postgraduate School, and the Defense Language Institute.
Ambassador Lyon joined the Foreign Service in 1974, after graduating from Swarthmore College with a degree in History and a concentration in Latin American studies. He spent the next ten years overseas, serving in Nigeria, Brazil, Ghana and the Philippines. From 1984-86, he was deputy, then acting, director of the Office of Regional African Affairs in the State Department, followed by a year of national security studies at the National War College. In 1987, he was assigned as U.S. Consul General in Bangkok. After four years in Thailand, he returned to Washington as an Office Director in the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics Matters where, among other duties, he directed aerial drug interdiction and opium & coca eradication efforts in Latin America.
In 1999, Ambassador Lyon was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing where he managed consular operations at six posts in China and Mongolia. From 1999-2002, he was Principal Officer at the U.S. Consulate General in Melbourne, Australia. He assumed his posting as Ambassador to Fiji in early 2003 and was responsible for all aspects of U.S. policy towards five Pacific Island countries and a number of important regional organizations.
On his retirement, Ambassador Lyon received the Secretary of State’s Career Achievement Award from Secretary Condaleeza Rice. His other significant Department of State awards include Superior Honor Awards for his work in the Philippines, the Bureau of International Narcotics Matters and China, and a Meritorious Honor Award for protecting American citizens in China during five days of violent nation-wide demonstrations following the accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in May 1999. During his assignment to Beijing, he also received the 1997 Thomas Jefferson Award, presented annually by the Geneva-based organization, American Citizens Abroad, to government officials who have provided exceptional support to Americans overseas. While at the National War College, he received the Alumni Award for Excellence in Research and Writing for his paper on the RENAMO insurgency in Mozambique.
Ambassador Lyon is married to Maureen Gomes Lyon of Hollister, CA. Mrs. Lyon was an Army nurse during the Vietnam War, serving three years in Okinawa, after which she spent four years in Brazil with the Peace Corps. The Lyons have two children, Nathaniel and Jocelyn, who live in Melbourne, Australia.
