July 17, 1986
The President today announced his intention to nominate Princeton Nathan Lyman, of Maryland, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Career Minister, to be Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He would succeed Thomas W.M. Smith.
Mr. Lyman began his career as a salesman for Michael Tenenbaum in Boston, MA, 1957 - 1959, followed by a teaching/research assistant position at Harvard University in Cambridge until 1961. In 1961 he joined the Agency for International Development (AID) and served in Washington, DC, as an international relations officer until 1964. From 1964 to 1967, he served with AID in Korea as a program officer and then spent a year as a research fellow at Harvard University. In 1968 Mr. Lyman became Director of the Office of Civic Participation at AID, and later he was Director of the Office of Development Resources in the African Bureau from 1971 to 1976. He became Director of U.S. AID in Ethiopia, 1976 - 1978. He returned to Washington in 1978 to become Deputy Director, then Director, of the Institute for Scientific and Technological Cooperation Planning Office, International Development Cooperation Administration in Washington, DC. In 1980 he joined the Department of State as Director of the Office of Inter-African Affairs, and from 1981 to the present, he has been serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs.
Mr. Lyman graduated from the University of California (A.B., 1957) and Harvard University (M.A., 1959 and Ph.D., 1961). His foreign language is French. Mr. Lyman is married, has three daughters, and was born November 20, 1935, in San Francisco, CA.