former ambassador
About Us
Ambassador John M. Ordway
Chargé d’Affaires
Embassy of the United States of America
Sofia, Bulgaria
Ambassador John M. Ordway is the Chargé d'Affaires at the U.S. Embassy. He previously served as Chargé d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Vienna in 2009, and has served as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Kazakhstan (2004-2008) and to Armenia (2001-2004).
A career Foreign Service Officer since 1975, Ambassador Ordway has an extensive background in Soviet and Russian affairs, as well as experience in European security affairs, conflict resolution and peacekeeping operations. He served at U.S. Embassies in Prague (1978-1981) and Moscow (1985-1987), in Brussels at the U.S. Mission to NATO (1993-1995), then again in Moscow from 1996-2001, serving the last two years as Deputy Chief of Mission. In Washington, Ambassador Ordway worked in the State Department's Press Office, the Office of Southern African Affairs, the Office of Soviet Union Affairs, and Director of African Affairs for the National Security Council.
Ambassador Ordway was born in California where he attended public schools and Stanford University. Before graduating with a Bachelor's degree in history in 1972, he studied for nine months in Florence, Italy. He is a 1975 graduate of the University of California's Hastings College of Law, and did a year of advanced graduate work in Soviet and Eastern European studies at the University of California, Berkeley in 1981-1982. His foreign languages include Russian, French, Italian, Czech and Armenian. He and his wife, Maryjo, have two grown children, Christopher and Julia.