Mr. Trey Lyons has focused his diplomatic career on central and eastern Europe, leading interagency teams to advance U.S. security and energy objectives. Prior to joining the faculty of the National War College Trey led the U.S. Embassy in Zagreb, Croatia, as Chargé d’Affaires ad interim; he previously served as the embassy’s Deputy Chief of Mission.
Before arriving in Croatia, Trey served at the White House as the National Security Council’s Director for Eastern Europe during Russia’s further invasion of Ukraine. In Vienna, Austria, he was Senior Advisor to the Slovak (2019), Albanian (2020), and Swedish (2021) Chairmanships of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). He also held positions as the State Department’s Director of Crisis Management Training; Political and Economic Counselor and Acting Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Bratislava, Slovakia; and Conflicts Advisor at the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia. Previous assignments include Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, Senior Watch Officer in the State Department’s Operations Center, and earlier career postings at the U.S. Missions in Slovakia and Saudi Arabia.
Drawn to unconventional paths, Trey abandoned his undergraduate honors thesis to cross the Sahara’s Grand Erg Oriental on foot alongside two local tribesmen and five camels. Outside his official duties, Trey has driven Jeeps across landscapes as varied as the Rocky Mountains, the Caucasus range, and the Arabian deserts.
A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Trey holds a bachelor’s degree in political science Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Colorado at Boulder and is a Distinguished Graduate of the National War College, where he earned a master’s degree in national security strategy. He speaks Croatian, Slovak, Russian, and French