Ambassador Stadtler has previously served as President/CEO of the National Defense University Foundation, and as Vice-President of NDU. Prior to that role, He served as a career officer in the United States Foreign Service for more than three decades during which he was assigned to: London, Bonn, United States Mission to the United Nations, Stockholm, Cotonou, Addis Ababa, Pretoria, Cape Town and Washington. In 1986, Ambassador Stadtler was appointed by President Reagan as Ambassador to Benin, where he served for three years. In addition, he worked as a Senior Fellow in the Office of the Secretary of Defense where he was responsible for advising on critical issues in relation to Somalia, Bosnia and Haiti. In 1993, he was appointed head of the Department of Defense Task Force on Somalia and negotiated with Somali leaders, heads of government and with ministers of defense and foreign affairs whose forces were engaged in peacekeeping in that country. From 1995 through 2002, he was the United States representative on the International Defense Advisory Board for the Baltic Republic of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Ambassador Stadtler has also been a Professor and Director of the Program on Peacekeeping Policy at George Mason University from 1995 until May of 2000. Ambassador Stadtler is a graduate of the Royal College of Defense Studies in London.