Suzanne Petrie, director for Latin America in the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of International Affairs, will deliver the 2005 Commencement address at Sweet Briar College on Saturday, May 14. She will present “Paths Change, Values Define” during Commencement exercises at 10 a.m. on the Quad in front of Memorial Chapel.

Petrie launched a distinguished career in public service after earning a bachelor’s degree in international affairs at Sweet Briar in 1991. Today, she is responsible for overall DHS strategy and security implementation within the Western Hemisphere and represents the department on Latin American issues at the White House and State Department.

Petrie said she is “truly honored and humbled” to be SBC’s commencement speaker. “Sweet Briar has always been near and dear to my heart and I am very much looking forward to returning to campus.”

Before her DHS directorship, Petrie was director for North American Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, International Security Affairs from 2000 to 2004. She coordinated with State Department, National Security Council, Joint Staff, and relevant embassies to draft, negotiate, and implement defense policies within the hemisphere.

For her work as coordinator for bilateral meetings during the Defense Ministerial of the Americas IV, she received the Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence in 2000. She was Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s bilateral meeting coordinator for DMA V in Santiago, Chile, in November 2002, and served as OSD’s point of contact for the international security aspects of homeland defense policy.

From 1992 to ’94, after receiving a master’s degree in U.S foreign and defense policy at American University School of International Service, Petrie was named a Presidential Management Fellow. She completed the fellowship with U.S. Sen. John Warner of Virginia as a liaison with the Armed Services and Intelligence Committees. She also graduated from the Military Intelligence Officers Basic Course at Ft. Huachuca, Ariz.

For two years she was an intelligence analyst for Headquarters, Department of the Army, focusing on the Andean Ridge countries, for which she received the Superior Civilian Service Medal in 1996. From ’96 to ’98 Petrie was the director for Latin American Programs at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., and was named the 1998 Air Force Academy Staff “Civilian of the Year.”

Petrie served as Mexico director in the White House Drug Policy Office from 1999 to 2000, coordinating all aspects of strategic-level bilateral drug control issues with Mexico. She served as the U.S. action officer in charge of the U.S.-Mexico High-Level Contact Group for Drug Control, a cabinet level bi-national forum for strategic-level policy decisions. She has received the White House Special Recognition Award twice.

Petrie is a Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government Senior Executive Fellow and completed her Senior Executive Service training at the Federal Executive Institute in Charlottesville, Va., this spring.

In the event of rain, commencement will be held in Murchison Lane Auditorium of the Babcock Fine Arts Center. Tickets are required. A buffet luncheon for graduates and their families will follow in the student commons courtyard and Prothro Dining Hall. For more information, please call (434) 381-6262.