William Courtney
Co-Chair, America's International Partners
William Courtney, a retired U.S. Ambassador, is an adjunct senior fellow at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation, where his focus is the former Soviet Union. He is Chair-Emeritus of the board of trustees of Eurasia Foundation, which carries out programs abroad to improve governance and strengthen civil society. From 1972 through 1999, he was a career foreign service officer in the U.S. Department of State. He served overseas in Brasilia, Moscow, Geneva, Almaty, and Tbilisi. Confirmed by the Senate three times, he served as Ambassador to Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the U.S.-Soviet Commission to implement the Threshold Test Ban Treaty.
After retiring from the Department of State, he was a corporate executive with DynCorp, where he led a unit that provided arms control and nonproliferation support to U.S. government agencies. After Computer Sciences Corporation acquired DynCorp, he managed a high-level national security advisory group. Since 2014, he has been at RAND. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was an International Affairs Fellow there. He is a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy and Cosmos Club. He has a B.A. in economics from West Virginia University and a Ph.D. in economics from Brown University. He is married to Laryssa Courtney and has two adult children, Will and Alison.
America’s Field Trip
Engaging students nationwide to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary!
A new contest inviting students in grades 3–12 to share their perspectives on what America means to them — and earn the opportunity to participate in field trip experiences at some of the nation’s most iconic historic and cultural landmarks.