Public Affairs Officer Robert Zimmerman and his wife Mariela, right, pictured with Ambassador and Mrs. Baxter, Nov. 19.

U.S. Ambassador Frank Baxter opened his home on Monday, Nov. 19 to the Montevideo business and cultural community for a reception to welcome Robert Zimmerman as the new Public Affairs Officer for the U.S. Embassy Montevideo.

“My team and I are going to work very hard for the next few years. So please contact me anytime for assistance or information,” Mr. Zimmerman told some 100 guests at the afternoon reception.

He was introduced by the ambassador, who addressed the audience in Spanish and encouraged the community to look to Mr. Zimmerman for assistance with cultural, educational and media affairs.

Mr. Zimmerman is in charge of the embassy’s Public Affairs Section, which is comprised of press and cultural affairs offices. The Press Office provides information and policy statements to local media, and the Cultural Affairs Office promotes cultural and educational relations between the U.S. and Uruguay through various bilateral programs.

Mr. Zimmerman’s section manages the exposition of Uruguayan art in the embassy, a U.S.-Uruguay coin exhibit, a U.S.-Uruguayan Friendship Day with the Montevideo Orchestra, and a radio transmission from the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

An Afro-Uruguayan drumming parade in Montevideo, the International Jazz Festival in Punta del Este, the celebration of Carlos Gardel Day in honor of a famous Uruguayan tango singer, and Fourth of July concerts are events the embassy’s Public Affairs Section supports annually.

The section houses an Information Resource Center that provides data and information about the United States to the Uruguayan public and visitors. The section also manages the embassy's website.

Mr. Zimmerman most recently served as assistant press officer at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. He was previously WHA spokesman at the U.S. State Department from 2002-05 and served in the Information Office bureau from 2001-02. Mr. Zimmerman was a vice consul in Haiti and Buenos Aires from 1996-2000 after serving as a USIA junior officer trainee in Paris and as Cultural Affairs Officer in Yaounde, Cameroon.

He is married to Mariela K. Farhi-Zimmerman, and the couple is expecting their first child in 2008.

Contact Mr. Zimmerman’s office at 418-7777 ext. 2357.

More information on the embassy's Public Affairs Section is available on this website. Also see Robert Zimmerman's bio.

Leigh Miller / Staff Writer

 
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