Mark Andrew Green (born June 1, 1960) is an American politician and diplomat who is the president, director and CEO of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Before joining the Wilson Center on March 15, 2021, he served as the executive director of the McCain Institute for International Leadership, and prior to that, as the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development. He served in the Wisconsin State Assembly from 1993 to 1999, was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1999 to 2007, representing , ran unsuccessfully for governor of Wisconsin in 2006, and held the post of United States Ambassador to Tanzania from August 2007 until January 2009. Green served as president of the International Republican Institute from 2014 to 2017 and sits on the board of directors of the Millennium Challenge Corporation.
The United States Senate confirmed Green as administrator of the USAID on August 3, 2017. He was sworn in the following August 7. On March 16, 2020, Green submitted a resignation letter to President Trump. He left the office on April 10, 2020.
Early life and education
Green was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Jeremy and Elizabeth Green. His father is from South Africa, and Green spent time there as a child. His family moved often, and as a child he lived in Jersey City, New Jersey; Cincinnati, Ohio; England; South Africa; and Australia. He attended Abbot Pennings High School in De Pere, Wisconsin.
Green received a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire in 1983 and a Juris Doctor from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1987. In law school, he served as a managing editor of the Wisconsin Law Review and won the Justice Robert Jackson Award from the Washington, D.C., Foreign Law Society for "Best Published Student Writing on a Foreign Law Subject".
Career
After graduating from law school, he joined the law firm Godfrey & Kahn S.C. at their Green Bay, Wisconsin office.
Wisconsin State Assembly
In 1992, Green was elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly, where he served District 4 for six years and rose to the position of chairman of the Republican Caucus. He chaired the Judiciary Committee, served on the Board of the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority (WHEDA), and helped reform state housing policy. Green's legislative work won him awards from the Wisconsin and American Farm Bureau Federations, the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business, the National Rifle Association of America, the Wisconsin Builders Association, the Wisconsin Medical Society, Citizens Against Government Waste, Watchdogs of the Treasury, and the Seniors Coalition.
U.S. House of Representatives
Green first ran for Congress in 1998, defeating first-term Representative Jay W. Johnson, with 54% of the vote. Green won each of his next three elections with 70% or more of the vote. He represented Wisconsin's 8th congressional district from the 106th Congress until the 109th Congress.
Green was a member of the House International Relations Committee in the 107th to 109th sessions of Congress. He helped draft the Millennium Challenge Act, the Global Access to HIV/AIDS Prevention, Awareness and Treatment Act of 2001, and the U.S. Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Act. He co-founded the Victory in Iraq Caucus.
Green worked to raise awareness about human rights violations by the communist Pathet Lao government in Laos against the ethnic minority Hmong people and others suffering under authoritarian governments, and about religious freedom issues in Laos and Southeast Asia. Many Hmong Americans had resettled in Wisconsin as political refugees following the Vietnam War.
In January 1999, Green was appointed an Assistant Majority Whip by then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, and then re-appointed by House Majority Whip Roy Blunt.