A Laven­tille-born Unit­ed States cit­i­zen has been con­firmed as the next US am­bas­sador to T&T.The US em­bassy has con­firmed that John Estra­da, a ca­reer ma­rine, was se­lect­ed. It was al­so re­port­ed in a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day by the White House.The state­ment said Estra­da had en­dorsed US Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma and spoke at the 2008 De­mo­c­ra­t­ic con­ven­tion.Estra­da mi­grat­ed with his fam­i­ly to the US at 14. In Sep­tem­ber 1973 short­ly af­ter earn­ing his high school diplo­ma, he joined the marines.

Estra­da's BIO

John L Estra­da is a se­nior man­ag­er for Lock­heed Mar­tin Train­ing So­lu­tions Inc, a po­si­tion he has held since 2008. Pre­vi­ous­ly, he was a busi­ness de­vel­op­ment spe­cial­ist for Co­a­les­cent Tech­nol­o­gy Cor­po­ra­tion from 2007 to 2008.Pri­or to his ca­reer in the pri­vate sec­tor, Estra­da served in the US Ma­rine Corps for 34 years, ris­ing to be­come the 15th sergeant ma­jor of the US Ma­rine Corps, the na­tion's high­est-rank­ing en­list­ed ma­rine.

He served as sergeant ma­jor in the corps from 2003 to 2007. From 2001 to 2003, he served as sergeant ma­jor of the third ma­rine air­craft wing, Ma­rine Corps Air Sta­tion, Mi­ra­mar.From 2000 to 2001, Estra­da was sergeant ma­jor of the re­cruit train­ing reg­i­ment at Par­ris Is­land and from 1998 to 2000 he was sergeant ma­jor for the re­cruit­ing sta­tion in Sacra­men­to, Cal­i­for­nia.In 2010, he was ap­point­ed to the Amer­i­can Bat­tle Mon­u­ments Com­mis­sion. Estra­da serves as a com­mit­tee mem­ber of the De­fence Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee on Women in the Ser­vices, a mem­ber of the na­tion­al board of di­rec­tors for Op­er­a­tion Home­front and on the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee for the Unit­ed Ser­vices Or­gan­i­sa­tion. Estra­da re­ceived a BS from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Phoenix.Source: White House Web site