{"id":10675,"date":"2016-04-28T17:20:23","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T23:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/?p=10675"},"modified":"2016-04-29T13:19:39","modified_gmt":"2016-04-29T19:19:39","slug":"peak-profile-jennifer-zimdahl-galt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2016\/04\/peak-profile-jennifer-zimdahl-galt\/","title":{"rendered":"Jennifer Zimdahl Galt"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ambassador<\/a>

Ambassador Jennifer Zimdahl Galt \u201981<\/b><\/p><\/div>\n

Mongolia is more than 6,000 miles away from Colorado, but Jennifer Zimdahl Galt <\/strong>already feels at home.<\/p>\n

In May 2015, President Barack Obama nominated her as ambassador to Mongolia and, a few months later, the U.S. Senate confirmed her. In late September, the longtime Foreign Service officer and her family headed to the country wedged between Russia and China.<\/p>\n

\u201cMongolia is a fascinating country that in many ways reminds me of Colorado,\u201d she says via email from Ulaanbaatar, the capital.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has wide open grasslands, snow-capped mountains, vast blue horizons and endless sunshine. Mongolia and Colorado share the same boast \u2014 more than 300 sunny days a year.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Galt was in the midst of a cold winter when she wrote in late January. Ulaanbaatar is a bustling city, she says. The 25-year-old parliamentary democracy is sparsely populated with a total of three million people in a country the size of Alaska.<\/p>\n

Mongolia\u2019s citizens speak Mongolian and the written language uses the Cyrillic alphabet. English is gradually replacing Russian as the second language.<\/p>\n

Galt, who hails from Fort Collins, Colorado, earned her master\u2019s in international relations and economics from Johns Hopkins University in 1983 and a master\u2019s of science from National Defense University in 2008. Her first foreign assignment was as assistant cultural affairs officer in the U.S. embassy in Belgrade, in the former Yugoslavia, in 1989.<\/p>\n

Assignments in Taiwan, India, China, NATO headquarters in Belgium, and Washington, D.C. followed. Galt began studying French at CC and has added Mandarin Chinese, Italian, Spanish, and Serbo-Croatian to her repertoire. Now, she\u2019s studying Mongolian.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpeaking these languages has enabled me to communicate directly with people in the countries where I\u2019ve served and traveled,\u201d Galt says.<\/p>\n

She knew early in life so live all over the world, but couldn\u2019t figure out how to combine her passions for medicine and world travel while paying off her student loans.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the Block Plan, she was able to \u201cshift gears\u201d late in her sophomore year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to CC as a pre-med major and wound up changing paths and creating my own major, combining history, political science, and languages,\u201d Galt says. \u201cThe quality of the teaching at CC and the opportunity to engage with world-class professors like Tim Fuller and Susan Ashley prepared me for a lifetime of learning and critical thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also forged lifelong friendships at CC and says the school is still a vital part of her life.<\/p>\n

Galt has loved her Foreign Service career, but admits it can be difficult at times.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoy the challenge of learning new languages and cultures and tackling a new job every two or three years, but moving families, keeping spouses gainfully employed, and changing kids\u2019 schools are not easy. It is also difficult, as parents age, to stay in touch living 15 times zones away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Galt and her husband, writer Frederick \u201cFritz\u201d Galt, have two children: Phoebe, 20, and Dylan, 17, who\u2019ve spent most of their lives overseas.<\/p>\n

As ambassador to Mongolia, Galt\u2019s main focus is on strengthening the economic ties between Mongolia and the United States, enhancing the already strong military partnership, and building people-to-people ties.\u00a0 She\u2019s already founded a Young Leaders program to connect with the next generation of Mongolian leaders. She\u2019s especially proud of her role encouraging younger women to aspire to leadership positions.\u201cI believe in the power of diplomacy and feel strongly that effective communication to enhance mutual understanding helps build the foundation for productive, forward-looking bilateral relationships around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Want to keep up with Galt\u2019s activities in Mongolia? Follow her on Twitter:\u00a0 @USAmbMongolia<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mongolia is more than 6,000 miles away from Colorado, but Jennifer Zimdahl Galt already feels at home. In May 2015, President Barack Obama nominated her as ambassador to Mongolia and, a few months later, the U.S. Senate confirmed her. In late September, the longtime Foreign Service officer and her family headed to the country wedged…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":10677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[63],"class_list":["post-10675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-april-2016","tag-peak-profiles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2016\/04\/CC-BUL-APRIL2016-28-PeakProf-GaltMain.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10675"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10734,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10675\/revisions\/10734"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}