William M. Drozdiak is president of the American Council on Germany, the oldest and most prestigious of the non-profit organizations devoted to cooperation and understanding between the United States and Europe. Since becoming chief executive officer in February 2005, Mr. Drozdiak has expanded the ACG's popular Young Leader programs, its high-level policy conferences, and fellowships for young professionals in urban affairs, journalism and the environment. He has also broadened the scope of the ACG's activities to embrace the 27-nation European Union and to encourage greater transatlantic dialogue between business and government on trade, investment, new technologies and climate change. Previously Mr. Drozdiak was the founding Executive Director of the Transatlantic Center, created in 2001 by the German Marshall Fund of the United States to serve as the first independent think tank in Brussels, Belgium for U.S.-European relations. The center serves as a base for prominent American scholars, policy analysts and journalists conducting research on Atlantic relations. It also organizes the annual Brussels Forum, which brings together influential American and European political, corporate and intellectual leaders to address pressing challenges currently facing both sides of the Atlantic. In addition, the center hosts regular policy seminars and supervises fellowships, educational exchanges and foundation grants funded by GMF's $250 million endowment. Mr. Drozdiak worked for two decades as an editor and foreign correspondent for The Washington Post. During his tenure as foreign news editor from 1986 to 1990, the Post won two Pulitzer Prizes for its international reporting on the Middle East and on the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. As a correspondent covering events in Europe and the Middle East, he wrote and reported on the Iran-Iraq war, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the events leading to German reunification. As the Post's bureau chief in Paris and Berlin and as its chief European correspondent in Brussels from 1990 to 2001, he covered all major political, economic and security issues across Europe, including the enlargement of NATO and the European Union and the Balkan wars. For his coverage of NATO's air war in Kosovo, he was part of a Washington Post team selected as finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for international affairs in 1999. Before joining the Post, Mr. Drozdiak worked as State Department Correspondent for Time magazine and a staff writer at its New York headquarters. He also covered the Middle East while based in Cairo and Beirut for Time and the Washington Star, reporting on the Camp David peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, the fall of the Shah of Iran, the assassination of Anwar Sadat and the war between Iran and Iraq from both sides of the conflict. He has also written extensively about international relations for a variety of other publications, including Foreign Affairs, Newsweek and the New York Times. Prior to becoming a journalist, Mr. Drozdiak played professional basketball in the United States and Europe from 1971 until 1978. He graduated from the University of Oregon in 1971 with two bachelor degrees in political science and economics and was awarded a postgraduate fellowship as an NCAA Scholar-Athlete. He also earned a master's degree in economics at the College of Europe in Bruges and studied at the Institute of European Studies at the University of Brussels. He received the Distinguished Alumnus award as commencement speaker at the University of Oregon and is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He speaks fluent French and German and has a passive understanding of Italian and Spanish. Mr. Drozdiak is married to Renilde Loeckx, a Belgian diplomat who is currently serving as Consul General in New York City. They have three grown children: Nicholas, Karen and Natalia.
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